•5" 


(See  p.  113 
"  '  THERE    THEY    STOOD    IN    THE    DOOR  '  " 


MINISTERS    OF    GRACE 


B  IRovelette 


EVA  WILDER   McGLASSON 

AUTHOR  OF 
'DIANA'S  I.IVBKY"  "AN  KAETHLY  PARAGON"  KTO. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW     YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
1894 


Copyright,  1891,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 
All  rigfitt  reiened 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"'THERE  THEY  STOOD  IN  THE  DOOR'"    .     .  Frmii>piee« 
"'CHEAP!'   HE    REPEATED,   WITH    PLAINTIVE 

PERSISTENCE" Facing  P.    2 

"  REV.   THOMAS    RULEY    AND    DAUGHTER,    HIGH 

RIPPLE,  INDIANA  " "          18 

"A    CHAIR    DRAWN    UP     IN    THE    VERY    SITUA- 
TION HE  HAD  FIGURED" "       34 

'"MR.  GRAHAM  IS  ALREADY  FAR  OUT1".     .  "       66 

"  THEN  A  SOFT  STILLNESS  SETTLED  DOWN  "  .  "       88 
"GRAHAM  WAS  A  MADDENING   SIGHT  IN  HIS 

BREEZY  L1GHT-HEARTEDNESS "  .     .     .     .  "       94 

'"THIS    IS    BEEF-TEA   FOR    ///Jtf'"       ....  "       132 


MINISTERS   OF   GRACE 


THE  Syrian  peddler  wore  a  black  skull-cap 
heavily  braided.  About  his  spare  waist  was 
buttoned  a  sort  of  cloth  skirt,  the  wide  flare  of 
which  accented  the  slightness  of  his  figure. 
He  had,  indeed,  so  Wade  decided,  the  lines 
of  an  ancient  Egyptian,  as  shown  in  the  vi- 
vacious mural  sketches  of  Theban  times.  His 
finely  impressed  features  were  of  a  rich  bronze 
tone,  his  mellow,  appealing  eyes  very  dark. 
As  he  lifted  from  his  linen  pack  and  flung 
before  the  women  on  the  hotel  steps  a  strip 
of  crimson  silk,  or  a  gold-wrought  tissue  of 
white,  a  kind  of  alien  grace  and  distinction 
disclosed  themselves  in  his  motions. 

"  Cheap  !"  he  repeated,  with  plaintive  per- 
sistence, gazing  up  from  his  kneeling  posture 


into  the  faces  of  the  little  throng.  These 
faces,  set  off  against  the  antique  racial  im- 
plication of  his  own  sharp,  swart  visage, 
looked  queerly  commonplace  in  their  blunt- 
ness  of  feature,  freshness  of  color,  heaviness 
of  muscle.  They  were  good-humored  faces 
enough — such  kind,  broad,  unspeculative  faces 
as  are  by  no  means  unusual ;  but  as  Wade  re- 
garded them  from  the  east  end  of  the  porch, 
where  he  sat  by  himself,  he  had  a  little  sense 
of  amusement  at  the  supremacy  of  his  own 
new  and  prosperous  country,  as  expressed  in 
the  portly  condescension  of  these  middle-aged 
countenances. 

Some  of  the  women  turned  over  the  deli- 
cate Eastern  stuffs  with  disdaining  hands. 
They  tried  on  the  silk  shawls  and  weighed 
the  fringes  with  calculating  fingers.  Gener- 
ally they  said,  "  Too  dear,  Marco,"  speaking 
very  loudly,  as  to  a  deaf  man.  And  while 
they  haggled  over  his  goods  the  vender  of 
silks  knelt  at  their  feet,  with  his  slender 
brown  hands  pathetically  clasped,  and  his 
picturesque  profile  imploringly  raised. 

"What  you  give?"  he  pleaded,  servilely. 
Behind  him  was  a  scenic  background  of 


flawless  summer"  sky  and  bright  blue  sea. 
Faint  garlands  of  smoke  from  an  unseen  ves- 
sel rose  beyond  the  reach  of  sun -flecked 
water.  A  schooner,  with  every  inch  of  can- 
vas out,  slipped  along  the  offing.  Arc-lamps, 
poles,  webs  of  wire,  a  pausing  trolley-car,  and 
the  fretted  roofs  of  a  group  of  bath  -  houses 
rose  dark  and  clear  upon  the  blending  reach 
of  sea  and  heaven.  Flags  curled  blithely 
from  hotel  tops ;  peaks,  turrets,  airy  porches 
stretched  away  in  a  dazzling  freshness  of  new 
paint;  a  fountain  flung  crystal  threads  above 
its  cupid-clasped  basin  in  the  green  ribbon 
of  park  fronting  the  Dorsheimer  Arms. 

The  veranda  of  this  house,  unpeopled  ex- 
cept for  Wade  and  the  group  on  the  steps, 
was  set  along  its  expanse  with  any  number 
of  slim,  pale -green  pillars.  Below  a  scroll- 
sawed  roof,  scooped  out  in  shallow  arches, 
heavy  arm-chairs  were  sociably  ranged,  thick- 
ening towards  the  west  end,  on  which  the 
windows  of  the  dance-hall  gave.  The  other 
end  faced  the  ocean,  which,  like  a  gleaming 
sword,  flashed  across  the  end  of  the  street. 

Wade,  as  he  sat  here,  staring  seaward, 
found  himself  vaguely  disturbed  by  the  jab- 


ber  of  the  bargainers.  There  was,  indeed,  a 
mixture  of  noises  this  morning.  A  brass- 
band  sent  fitful  screams  of  waltz  music  up 
from  the  beach,  and  somewhere  nearer  a  cor- 
net rasped  inharmoniously.  Children  were 
running  about  the  upper  porches,  and  the 
gay  laughter  of  some  passing  girls  mingled 
strangely  with  the  solemn  murmur  of  the 
surf.  It  was  noisy.  And  distinctly  he  had 
less  tolerance  for  Hildreth  Beach  than  he  had 
found  it  easy  in  other  days  to  command — 
had  Wade. 

He  could  plainly  remember  liking  it  im- 
mensely when,  at  odd  times  in  the  past  ten 
years,  the  press  of  newspaper  work  permitted 
him  to  run  down  for  a  sniff  of  salt  air  and  a 
day  or  so  of  such  distractions  as  the  big, 
heavily  frivolous  summer  city  had  to  offer. 
His  nerves,  he  reminded  himself,  had  perhaps 
been  steadier  during  these  former  visits,  and 
not,  as  at  present,  lax  from  an  attack  of  fe- 
ver. Perhaps  when  the  salt  sea  should  have 
wrought  upon  him  for  a  week  or  two  the 
old  contentment  would  return  ?  Yet,  notwith- 
standing this  possibility,  Wade  grew  uncom- 
fortably pensive  over  his  sudden  feeling  of 


personal  indifference.  If  he  went  on  losing 
interest  in  things  at  this  rate,  and  finding  only 
annoyance  in  what  had  once  given  pleasure, 
what  would  life  be  in  another  decade,  when 
he  should  face  the  windy  side  of  forty  ?  It 
was  a  very  pretty  question.  Decidedly,  since 
Hildreth  affected  him  after  a  new  order,  he 
must  have  changed  greatly.  For  Hildreth 
itself  was  practically  unchangeable,  having  as 
patrons  the  sort  of  folk  who  maintain  hu- 
manity's averages  —  a  class  too  simple  and 
primitive  ever  to  vary  much. 

This  slip  of  the  coast  was  everywhere  recog- 
nized as  the  junketing-ground  of  the  masses. 
The  kindly  determined  people  who  swarmed 
here  in  summer,  to  the  number  of  tens  of 
thousands,  represented  the  great  conserva- 
tive, solidly  respectable  middle  classes  of  the 
country — so  far,  indeed,  as  a  republic  may 
have  such  a  class,  or  any  class.  They  would 
have  referred  to  themselves  with  pride  as 
plain  people.  That  they  made  little  preten- 
sion to  fashion  was  rather  a  vaunt  with  them. 
Of  arts,  letters,  and  philosophies  they  held 
large  general  views.  They  stood  sound  in  the 
creeds  of  their  respective  churches,  and  had 


correct  ideas  concerning  American  greatness. 
They  were  apt,  like  folk  of  a  more  analytic 
turn,  to  rate  each  other  according  to  the  tab- 
ulation of  Bradstreet.  In  fine,  they  abided 
in  a  broad,  unspeculative  optimism  and  the 
traditions  of  their  rearing,  believing  happi- 
ness to  be  humanity's  right,  and  mid-day  the 
best  time  for  dinner. 

And  as  they  had  a  wholesome  horror  of  the 
silence  and  solitude  that  are  dear  to  brain- 
sick mystics,  they  adored  Hildreth  Beach, 
which  had  short  shrift  for  either — that  is,  in 
the  season.  It  was  quiet  enough  at  Hildreth 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  year.  But 
though  the  peerless  beach,  the  strong,  sweet 
air,  the  fir-groves  and  little  lakes  and  stray 
brooks  and  other  merely  natural  aspects  were 
probably  quite  as  charming  then  as  at  the 
season's  height,  there  was,  of  course,  upon 
them  all  the  inevitable  dulness  which  a  lack 
of  engaging  pastimes  produces.  It  was  only 
in  midsummer  that  the  steam-launch  and  ob- 
servation-wheel and  toboggan-slide  operated 
with  an  accompaniment  of  brass-bands  and 
nightly  hops  and  blazing  electricity  and  im- 
penetrable crowds.  So,  naturally  enough  ev- 


cry  one  came  at  the  same  time,  while  these 
attractions  were  in  full  swing  —  every  one 
who  cared  for  amusement. 

Incidentally  many  came  for  the  bathing. 
The  surf  at  Ilildreth  was  incomparable,  and 
a  thought  of  the  flat  shelves  of  sand  and 
creaming  breakers  reinvigorated  Wade's 
mind,  lie  rose,  and,  pocketing  his  thumbs, 
took  in  the  powdery  fling  of  the  surge.  He 
was  a  slight  young  man,  who  looked  as  if  he 
might  stand  straighter  if  he  had  any  object 
in  it.  There  was  a  lot  of  heavy  hair  parted 
across  the  middle  of  his  head  and  flattened 
down  above  the  ears.  He  seemed  of  a  whim- 
sical habit  of  mind ;  there  was  a  slow  gleam 
in  his  brown  eyes ;  his  scrap  of  mustache 
twisted,  too,  as  if  used  to  the  drag  of  a  hu- 
morous lip  muscle. 

"  The  noise,  the  bustle,  is  just  what  I 
need,"  he  assured  himself,  with  the  hopeful 
sense  of  one  who  has  possessed,  and  perhaps 
still  at  heart  possesses,  that  vast  relish  for  life 
which  is  the  gracious  endowment  of  ordinary 
folk.  "  I'm  not  here  to  think,  but  to  avoid 
thinking."  And  by  a  natural  transition,  at 
which  he  smiled,  he  found  himself  adding, 


"  I  wonder,  where  Gracie  is  ?  She's  the  card 
when  a  fellow's  threatened  with  a  fit  of  med- 
itation !" 

Wherewith  he  strolled  towards  the  door  of 
the  office,  on  the  sill  of  which  the  clerk,  a 
stately-appearing  young  man,  stood  screwing 
the  head  on  a  fountain-pen. 

"  Miss  Gayle  about  ?"  asked  Wade. 

"Bathing,"  said  the  clerk,  succinctly. 
"Nice  little  lady,  that.  Awful  fond  of  her 
mother,  isn't  she  ?"  He  glanced  towards  a 
small  elderly  woman  who  stood  near  the  ped- 
dler, idly  turning  the  large  ruby  ring  on  her 
spare,  toil-worn  finger. 

"Very,"  agreed  Wade,  also  bestowing  a 
glance  upon  Miss  Gayle's  mother,  who,  with 
her  wrinkled  face,  her  knobbed  gray  hair,  and 
honest,  hard-working  air,  smiled  back  at  the 
young  man. 

"A  nice  little  lady,"  repeated  the  clerk, 
shaking  the  pen.  "  And  popular !  She  gets 
everything  that  strikes  the  place.  As  her 
mother  would  say,  '  She's  a  witch,  soir,  so 
she  'is,  don't  ye  know  ?  Arrah,  there's  danger 
in  her  eye !  But  nobody  has  the  betther 
daughter,  praise  be  to  God !'  "  He  broke  oS. 


in  a  decent  attempt  at  Irish,  and  said,  "  She's 
coming  up  the  street  now — three  chaps  with 
her,  too !" 

It  was  round  about  the  hour  of  noon,  and 
people  were  beginning  to  come  up  from  the 
beach.  Some  of  them  carried  dripping  gar- 
ments knotted  in  bath  towels.  Now  and  then 
a  woman  passed  with  unbound  hair  in  wet 
ropes  about  her  shoulders.  Men  in  summer 
flannels  joined  infrequently  in  the  throng. 
The  male  element  was  less  noticeably  lack- 
ing at  Hildreth  than  at  other  watering-places ; 
but  even  here  it  was  in  distinct  minority,  and 
the  sight  of  a  girl  attended  by  three  young 
men  was  remarkable  enough  to  win  the  sec- 
ond glance. 

She  was  a  little  thing — this  Miss  Gayle — 
with  a  straight,  alert  figure,  the  motions  of 
which,  as  she  walked,  bore  out  the  pert  au- 
dacity of  her  small  Hibernic  face.  Her  short 
hair,  crisp  with  the  persuasive  touch  of  hot 
irons,  relieved  the  clear  red  and  white  of  a 
skin  in  which  a  sort  of  waxen  opacity  was 
evident.  There  was  shrewdness  in  the  black- 
lashed,  pale-blue  eyes,  impudence  in  the  tilt- 
ed nose,  genuine  geniality  of  temperament  in 


10 


the  girl's  full  lips.  In  a  trim  blue  gown,  with 
conspicuous  anchors  of  white  on  the  wide 
collar,  in  sailor  hat,  white  gloves,  and  impos- 
sible-looking canvas  boots,  she  appeared  the 
apotheosis  of  a  type  common  to  the  Irish 
tenement-house  quarter  of  the  city. 

"Your  chariot -wheels  clank  loudly  this 
morning,"  said  Wade,  as  the  girl  ran  up  the 
steps.  She  shot  back  a  glance  at  her  depart- 
ing escort  and  laughed. 

"  Those  boys  ?"  she  said.  "  The  truth  is, 
I'm  finding  things  slow."  And  she  added,  as 
she  dropped  into  a  chair,  "  Very  slow,  in- 
deed." 

"  With  three  adorers  ?  I  say  nothing  of 
myself,  being  no  squire  of  dames.  I  realize 
that  I  may  never  hope  to  impress  that  flex- 
ible heart  which — " 

"  Oh,  bother !"  said  the  other,  fanning  her- 
self with  her  hat.  "  Sometimes  I  don't  rnind 
your  chaff ;  but  sometimes  it  don't  strike  me 
just  right.  This  is  one  of  the  times." 

"  When  you  are  cooler,  you'll  regret  this 
harshness,  Gracie."  She  made  a  little  gest- 
ure of  impatience. 

"  I'm  not  harsh  ;  I'm  only  serious.    It  don't 


H 


sit  well  on  you,  that  flirtatious  sort  of  way 
you  drop  into  once  in  a  while.  You  know 
what  I  think  of  you.  No — stop  it !  I'm  not 
joking.  You  know  I  like  you  ;  but  not  that 
way  any  more  than  you  do  me.  When  it 
comes  to  a  real  Simon-pure  friendship,  Selby 
Wade,  you'll  find  me  right  on  time ;  that's 
straight  goods — sure.  My  heart  may  be — 
what  was  it? — flexible.  It  may  be  flexible, 
but  I  haven't  forgot  that  write-up  you  gave 
me  two  years  ago.  I  hadn't  caught  on  at  all 
up  to  that  time.  The  public  needed  some 
one  to  tell  'em  I  could  dance  just  as  well  as 
these  Spanish  senoritas  they  were  raving 
over — and  you  told  'em.  I  tell  you — take 
me  up  one  side  and  down  the  other — I'm 
not  the  crying  kind  ;  but  when  I  read  the 
paper  that  day,  and  saw  what  a  send-off 
you'd  given  me,  I  keeled  right  over — yes, 
I  did ;  I  wept  like  an  infant ;  and  so  did 
mom."  She  caught  her  breath  in  excited  re- 
membrance. 

"  I  appreciated  it,"  she  continued.  "  It 
came  straight,  it  did.  I  had  no  pull  with 
the  paper  ;  I  didn't  even  know  who  wrote 
the  storv  till  I  went  and  asked.  And  I 


12 


hadn't  met  so  much  kindness  that  I  was 
used  to  it — I  had  not.  I'm  not  ashamed  to 
say  I've  worked  my  way  up.  I've  told  you 
how  poor  we  were,  mom  and  me.  It  wasn't 
much  worse  after  my  father  died.  He  was 
a  laboring  man,  and  he  drank,  and  we  got 
along  about  as  well  without  him.  Mom 
worked  out  by  the  day  and  sent  me  to  school, 
and  when  I  was  fifteen  I  got  a  place  in  the 
chorus.  And  I  found  I  could  sing  a  little, 
and  I  learned  to  dance.  I  stopped  being 
Mamie  Riley,  and  started  out  as  Grace  Gayle. 
I  worked  like  a  slave  ;  and  then  all  at  once 
I  caught  the  public.  I'm  right  in  with  luck 
now — can  sing  where  I  please.  And  in  a 
year  or  so  I'm  going  across  ;  and  I'll  do  an 
American  dance,  with  the  colors  wrapped 
round  me ;  and  they'll  think  it's  national  and 
all  that ;  and  when  I  come  back  to  the  land 
of  the  free,  I  will  own  it — see  ?  They  don't 
know  a  good  thing  here  till  some  other  coun- 
try points  it  out." 

"They've  recognized  you  without  trans- 
atlantic aid." 

"  Oh,  their  patriotism  was  roused  when 
they  had  me  described  to  'em  as  a  scrap  of 


18 


American  grit  bucking  against  foreign  pow- 
ers !  They're  for  protecting  home  industries 
every  time.  But  I  know  'em  ;  and  I  don't 
expect  to  take  'em  by  storm  till  I  come  back 
with  the  foreign  stamp  on  my  label !" 

The  porch  was  now  thronged.  Girls  in 
outing  apparel  chattered  in  the  wide  door- 
way of  the  office,  paying  court  to  a  stripling 
or  so,  whose  cigarette  smoke  curled  thinly 
about  the  huddle  of  heads.  Portly  women 
filled  the  arm-chairs,  and  a  few  elderly  men, 
with  feet  on  the  porch -rail,  discussed  the 
temperature  of  the  water. 

In  the  office  itself,  a  square  room  over- 
looked by  a  spiral  stairway,  a  compact  group 
of  girls  were  studying  the  register.  The 
clerk  was  accepting  a  cigar  from  a  pompous 
gentleman  whose  face  shone  rubicund  from 
below  his  high  silk  hat.  There  was  a  little 
movement  about  the  door.  People  began 
to  rise  from  the  arm-chairs,  and  Miss  Gayle, 
lazily  following  this  example,  said  :  "  I  see 
it's  dinner-time.  Let's  go  in."  She  was 
looking  beyond  Wade  into  the  sunny  street, 
and  her  face  presently  assumed  an  expres- 
sion of  mild  curiosity. 


14 


"Do  you  know  who  those  people  are?" 
she  asked,  nodding  roadward.  "  Queer  out- 
fit, isn't  it?  They  only  came  yesterday.  I 
noticed  'era  at  supper.  The  girl  struck  me 
kind  of  odd — like  a  frost-bitten  flower,  stiff 
and  cold." 

Just  below  the  porch  a  slight  young  per- 
son in  a  straight  black  frock,  and  with  her 
face  hid  in  the  flap  of  a  wide  white  hat,  was 
coming  up  the  cement  walk,  pushing  before 
her  a  wheeled  chair.  Over  the  back  of  this 
a  faded  shepherd's  plaid  trailed,  against  which 
leaned  the  head  of  a  feeble-looking  old  man. 
His  wasted  shape  was  hung  in  ministerial 
broadcloth,  and  over  his  breast  flared  two 
points  of  rough,  silvery  beard,  matching  in 
hue  the  straggling  locks  in  his  neck.  He 
clutched  at  the  chair -arms  in  a  strange  in- 
tensity of  grasp,  which  had  something  in 
common  with  the  meditative  fixity  of  his 
deep -set  eyes.  Neither  twinkling  fountain 
nor  flowery  park  nor  thronged  porch  ap- 
peared to  engage  him.  The  whole  specula- 
tion of  his  face  —  perpendicular  of  brow, 
beaked  of  nose,  fierce  of  eye — seemed  with- 
drawn to  inner  sources  of  cheerless  thought. 


15 


As  the  chair  was  drawn  up  at  the  base  of 
the  hotel  steps  he  started. 

"  We  are  back,  then,  Elizabeth  ?"  he  asked, 
in  a  perfunctory  way,  as  if  he  cared  little 
where  he  might  be. 

The  young  woman  had  come  round  to  his 
side. 

"  Yes,  father,"  she  said.  He  lifted  him- 
self, and  thrust  one  spare  leg  over  the  chair's 
edge.  She  was  bending  over  him,  and  he 
had  laid  his  hand  upon  her  arm,  struggling 
half  erect.  The  effort  seemed  too  much  for 
his  strength. 

"  I'm  spent  indeed,"  he  muttered,  sinking 
back — "a  land  laid  waste." 

Wade  had  started  forward,  treading  as  he 
went  upon  the  Syrian's  stuffs.  He  said,  "  Let 
me  help  you  ;"  and  so  drew  the  shrunken  fig- 
ure up  from  the  low  seat. 

"  Sir,"  declared  the  old  man,  with  austere 
dignity,  "  your  aid  was  most  timely.  I  thank 
you." 

"  We  thank  you,"  echoed  the  girl,  in  a  re- 
mote sort  of  voice. 

"It  was  nothing,"  said  Wade,  bowing  to 
her  and  noticing  that  her  face  was  pale  and 


soft  of  feature,  with  almost  colorless  lips, 
and  dark,  abstracted  eyes.  The  young  man 
took  in  these  details  indefinitely,  being  the 
more  aware  of  the  girl's  expression  of  reserve, 
which  was  so  marked  as  to  give  him  a  feel- 
ing of  strangeness  and  curiosity. 


II 


"  SOME  one  told  them  we  were  quiet,"  said 
the  clerk,  smiling  somewhat  —  "  some  one 
who'd  been  here  long  ago  when  Maynor  had 
the  place  and  put  out  the  lights  at  ten  and 
had  cold  dinners  on  Sunday."  He  paused  to 
take  a  brass-hung  key  from  a  young  woman. 
Then  he  turned  again  to  Wade,  who  was 
leaning  over  the  register,  and  added,  "  Things 
are  very  different  since  Dorsheimer  took  the 
house.  Whatever  else  we  are  or  are  not, 
we're  lively." 

"There's  no  doubt  about  that,"  echoed 
Wade,  feelingly.  He  had  his  eye  on  a  feebly 
scrawled  entry  which  read :  "  Rev.  Thomas 
Ruley  and  daughter,  High  Ripple,  Indiana," 
and  as  he  read  it  he  wondered  that  a  man  at 
once  old  and  ill  and  a  preacher  should  have 
elected  to  come  to  such  a  place  as  the  Dor- 
sheimer Arms. 

For  the  Dorsheimer  Arms,  as  the  clerk  had 
2 


18 


said,  was  very  lively  indeed.  It  had  dan- 
cing by  night  and  music  at  all  times,  and  its 
parlors,  porches,  and  corridors  were  constantly 
thronged  with  gay  multitudes.  It  was  only 
in  the  reading-room,  a  somewhat  barren  de- 
partment off  the  dance -hall,  that  quietude 
and  seclusion  ever  held  sway.  For  the  Hil- 
dreth  public  was  not  given  to  wasting  its 
holiday  time  over  fresh  or  musty  folios,  and 
books  were  indeed  so  rare  a  sight  iu  the 
hands  of  Hildreth  sojourners  that  Wade,  com- 
ing into  the  unfrequented  reading-room  upon 
a  certain  occasion  not  long  after  his  chat 
with  the  clerk,  was  something  surprised  to 
see  a  burly  black  volume  in  the  hand  of  a 
man  near  the  window. 

This  person,  turning  at  Wade's  step,  peered 
with  poring  eyes,  and,  recognizing  the  young 
man,  held  out  a  knotted  hand. 

"You  are  looking  better  to-day,"  said 
Wade,  with  resolute  cheerfulness.  The  old 
preacher's  face  gloomed  over,  and  he  dragged 
his  ragged  beard  together  with  bony  fin- 
gers. 

"  I  notice  little  change,"  he  demurred. 
"  The  noise  irritates  me.  In  truth,  I  am  un- 


~( 


'  REV.   THOMAS    RCLEY    AND    DAUGHTER,   HIGH    KIPI'LE, 
INDIANA  " 


19 


fit  for  such  sights  and  sounds  as  prevail 
here,  having  long  been  possessed  of  a  pining 
sickness."  His  voice  was  slightly  nasal,  with 
an  accent  that  lingered  in  the  style  of  the 
country  orator  upon  unimportant  but  regu- 
larly recurring  syllables.  It  had  also  a  sin- 
gular depth,  a  sort  of  passionate  undertone. 
And  as  he  talked  he  flung  his  hands  out  in 
sweeping  gestures,  over-fluent,  almost  melo- 
dramatic. 

"  We  little  expected  to  find  ourselves  in  a 
house  overrun  with  the  godless  hordes  of  fash- 
ion." he  went  on.  "  It  seems  that  the  place 
was  very  different  some  years  since,  when  my 
friend  Amos  Fitch,  of  High  Ripple,  spent 
two  days  here.  My  daughter  wishes  to  find 
a  quieter  place,  but  I  cannot  see  our  way 
clear.  Our  arrangements  were  for  a  certain 
period,  and  I  point  out  to  her  how  ill  a 
break  of  contract  would  beseem  us.  Eliza- 
beth is  scrupulously  conscientious.  I  have 
rarely  seen  a  more  lovely  nature.  But  in 
matters  of  business  I  regret  to  say  she  is  not 
so — I  might  say,  so  far-sighted  as  I  would 
wish." 

He  sighed  deeply  as  he  thumbed  his  big 


20 


book.  In  a  moment  he  added  that  his  daugh- 
ter had  yielded  to  his  views.  "  But  she  feels 
it — she  feels  it  sorely  that  I  should  be  dis- 
turbed by  anything,  for  she  persuaded  me 
to  come  here  against  my  better  judgment. 
The  doctor  advocated  sea-air  for  me.  But  I 
knew  that  ray  infirmity  was  not  to  be  reached, 
or,  I  may  say,  ameliorated.  And  I  realized 
the  folly  of  wasting  our  limited  substance 
in  the  pursuit  of  the  health  I  should  never 
regain.  Elizabeth,  however  —  I  am  weak, 
very  weak  in  those  small  hands  of  hers — this 
child  of  my  old  age,  left  motherless  in  her 
babyhood.  And  I  gave  in — I  gave  in !  But 
in  the  presence  of  such  folly  and  irreverence 
as  reign  here  in  this  mere  place  of  pleasure 
I  am  greatly  cast  down.  I  say  little  to  Eliza- 
beth, but  I  have  continual  heaviness  of  heart." 
He  shut  his  eyes,  as  one  who  sees  his  Nine- 
veh given  to  the  owls  and  bats. 

When  he  opened  them  it  was  with  a 
start.  The  strains  of  a  gavotte  had  begun  to 
crash  out  in  the  dance-hall,  and  at  the  first 
note  a  lot  of  young  folk  came  trooping  down 
the  porch.  One  girl,  glancing  into  the  read- 
ing-room, ^caught  sight  of  Wade,  and  paused 


on  the  threshold  of  the  long  window  to  do 
him  a  fine  courtesy. 

It  was  Miss  Gayle  who  thus  airily  plucked 
back  her  blue  skirts,  revealing  the  trimmest 
of  ankles,  the  highest  of  heels,  the  whitest  of 
lace  petticoat-frills.  Tossing  her  dark  curls, 
and  blowing  a  coquettish  stage-kiss  from  her 
finger-tips,  she  wheeled  round  and  away. 

The  eyes  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ruley  rested  on 
her  with  austere  reprobation. 

"A  daughter  of  Heth,"  he  said,  deeply, 
waving  off  the  iniquitous  vision  with  a  stern 
hand  — "  such  as  walk  with  outstretched 
necks,  mincing  as  they  go.  I  have  observed 
this  misguided  young  woman  before.  She 
represents,  I  am  told,  that  most  debasing  of 
modern  institutions,  the  stage." 

"  She's  an  actress,  but — " 

"So  I  understood.  I  can  but  trust  that 
my  Elizabeth  will  not  be  forced  by  the  de- 
mands of  courtesy  into  any  knowledge  of 
her." 

Wade's  brow  protested  a  little. 

"  Miss  Gayle  is  a  wonderfully  self-respect- 
ing little  girl,"  he  insisted.  "Whatever 
chance  at  life  she's  had  she's  made  for  herself. 


22 


She's  a  flower  of  the  slums — the  offshoot  of 
poverty  and  ignorance.  She's  worked  hard 
to  make  a  career,  has  Oracle.  And  I  can't 
see  that  it  could  possibly  debase  any  one  to 
witness  the  charming  and  modest  dances  she 
is  noted  for." 

"  I  will  not  further  enunciate  my  views  on 
the  particular  profession  to  which  this  young 
person  belongs,"  formally  declared  the  other, 
"  but  I  may  say  that  I  do  not  approve  of 
the  reprehensible  modern  spirit  which  leads 
women  to  desire  careers  of  any  sort."  He 
pointed  a  denunciative  finger.  "  The  distaff 
is  the  symbol  of  the  truest  womanhood.  To 
mind  the  house,  tend  the  sick,  rear  children — 
these  are  its  blessed  privileges.  But,"  cried 
Mr.  Ruley,  waxing  hot,  "  when  women  for- 
swear the  hearth  for  the  lancet,  the  law,  the 
pen — when  they  even  lift  in  the  sanctuary 
itself  those  voices  that  were  given  them 
to  soothe  the  suckling  at  their  breasts — 
then,  sir — then  ! — as  a  stanch  upholder  of 
pure  and  primitive  doctrine,  I  declare  against 
them !" 

"  Well,"  smiled  Wade,  "  why  not  let  them 
try  their  hand  ? — they're  bound  to,  anyhow ! 


38 


And  the  success  of  the  most  illustrious  won't 
change  the  features  of  ordinary  men's  ideal 
woman — the  white  lily  of  seclusion,  the  soft- 
eyed,  home-keeping  creature  whose  unam- 
bitious brows  are  forever  bent  on  a  long 
white  seam." 

"  I  agree  with  you  entirely !"  cried  Mr. 
Ruley,  taking  this  seriously.  "  My  Elizabeth, 
now — my  own  daughter — is  bread-winner  for 
both  of  us.  But  amid  my  desolation — for  I 
bear,  sir,  the  weight  of  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment— it  is  much  of  a  comfort  to  me  that 
her  position  is  a  sheltered  one.  She  has 
been,  since  she  left  school  three  or  four 
years  since,  companion  to  a  former  member 
of  my  congregation,  now  a  wealthy  Chicago 
woman.  Of  course  it  keeps  us  apart,  for  I 
remain  at  High  Ripple,  the  scene  of  my 
labor  and  my  great  trial.  But  I  am  used 
to  llis  rods,  and  I  have  the  consolation  of 
knowing  that  Bessie  is  lovingly  regarded  and 
protected.  And  her  service  permits  her  to 
spend  some  weeks  of  the  summer  with  me." 

His  strident  tones  rang  loud,  for  the  music 
had  stopped.  Other  voices  sounded  near  by 
as  a  party  of  girls  gathered  in  the  ball-room 


24 


door.  The  old  man  rose  stiffly  ;  he  had  de- 
scried his  daughter  coining  across  the  long 
room,  and  as  she  approached,  he  said,  "  I 
have  missed  you,  Elizabeth." 

"  I  was  helping  to  move  our  things,  father," 
she  said,  giving  Wade  a  small,  sedate  nod. 
"They've  found  us  quieter  rooms."  She 
glanced  curiously  towards  the  buxom,  berib- 
boned  girls  in  the  doorway — herself  a  strange 
unit  of  contrast  with  them,  in  her  sober  gown, 
her  quaintly  braided  black  hair,  her  white- 
ness, slightness,  and  chill  constraint. 

"  She  looks  as  hard  and  as  fragile  as  a 
scrap  of  carved  ivory  —  this  stand-offish 
young  person,"  thought  Wade.  But  just 
then,  as  she  bent  to  speak  to  her  father,  the 
shadow  of  a  smile  flickered  over  her  face,  so 
softening  it  that  the  young  man  changed  his 
figure. 

"  Set  off  against  those  blooming  creatures 
yonder,"  he  said  to  himself,  "she  is  like  a 
sprig  of  mignonette  in  a  bunch  of  cabbage- 
roses." 

The  girls  he  thus  massed  in  a  metaphor 
not  altogether  flattering  seemed  to  be  hold- 
ing a  whispered  consultation.  Then  one  of 


25 


them  stepped  forward,  and  Wade,  seeing  that 
it  was  Grace  Gayle,  held  himself  to  witness 
her  intent. 

"  Mr.  Wade,"  she  said,  "  introduce  me  to 
Mr.  and  Miss  Ruley.  You  see  I  know  your 
names  !  I  hope  you're  getting  better,  Mr.  Ru- 
ley. You  seemed  pretty  weak  the  other 
day.  I  tell  you  it's  awful — that  limber  feel- 
ing in  the  knees !  I've  had  it.  Only  mine 
came  from  stage-fright."  She  turned  gra- 
ciously to  Elizabeth  and  said,  "  You  don't 
seem  to  know  any  one  here,  so  I  just  told 
the  girls  I  was  going  to  come  right  up  and 
speak  to  you.  I  told  'em  I  wasn't  going  to 
stand  on  ceremony  ;  I'm  never  stiff  in  a  place 
like  this.  I  liked  the  looks  of  you,  and  I 
told  'em  I  was  going  to  see  that  you  had  a 
rattling  good  time  this  summer.  That's  how 
I  am." 

Miss  Ruley  regarded  her  with  a  little, 
impassive  smile.  For  all  her  severe  at- 
tire her  face  looked  almost  childlike  beside 
the  shrewd  alertness  of  Grace's  small  feat- 
ures. 

"  You  are  very  good,"  she  said,  in  a  guard- 
ed sort  of  voice — "  very  good  indeed."  And 


26 


then  she  moved  away — she  and  her  father — 
across  the  bare  expanse  of  floor. 

Grace's  face  twisted. 

"  I  didn't  seem  to  strike  'em  just  right," 
she  admitted.  "  But  say,  I  know  what  was 
wrong :  they  were  a  little  afraid  of  me  be- 
cause I'm  an  actress,  and  successful,  and  all 
that!  The  old  man  probably  thinks  I've  a 
silly  prejudice  against  preachers.  Now  I 
haven't  —  not  a  bit.  You  tell  him,  won't 
you,  Mr.  Wade,  that  I'm  not  at  all  stuck-up, 
or  bigoted,  or  anything.  Tell  him  I  haven't 
a  thing  against  religion.  Because  I  want  to 
get  on  with  the  daughter.  I'm  sorry  for  the 
poor  little  soul.  I  bet  she  never  had  a  bit  of 
fun  since  the  day  she  was  born.  She's  a 
little  cool,  and  my  spine  kind  of  froze  when 
she  turned  her  big,  innocent  eyes  on  me. 
But  she'll  like  me  when  she  knows  me," 
added  Grace,  complacently.  She  smiled  as 
she  turned  away.  And  Wade  smiled  also,  as 
he  remembered  the  impressive  stateliness  of 
the  small  figure  in  the  black  frock  which  had 
just  swept  through  the  doorway. 


Ill 


A  RUSSET-TONED  dusk  was  settling  thickly 
on  the  ocean.  From  its  farthest  brown  den- 
sity breakers  levelled  themselves  landward 
fa  hollow,  granite-like  plates.  Stars,  muffled 
in  mist,  shone  far  and  faint.  Out  on  the  flat 
reach  of  water  a  lighted  steamer  moved  slow- 
ly through  the  fog,  looking  not  unlike  a  great 
phosphorescent  fish  with  a  dorsal  fin  of  lu- 
minous silver.  The  color  of  the  pale  young 
moon  in  the  southern  sky  seemed  a  wan  re- 
flex of  a  sunset  still  wrapping  the  west  in 
vague  primrose.  Lances  of  light  moment- 
ly darted  from  hotel  windows  and  porches, 
matching  in  hue  the  sky's  low  saffron,  and 
making  the  dark  buildings  lifted  against  it 
look  like  mere  walls,  through  crevices  of 
which  the  after-glow  poured. 

Above  the  foam-streaked  sands  the  beach- 
walk  stretched  long  and  narrow,  jotted  at  in- 
tervals with  prim  little  benches  and  large  and 


28 


small  pavilions.  Being  Saturday  night,  there 
was  more  than  the  usual  throng  gathering 
for  the  evening  promenade,  and  sounds  of 
talk  and  laughter  rang  insistently  above  the 
echo  of  the  surf  and  the  intermittent  strains 
of  a  band  of  music  somewhere  down  the 
beach.  Men  in  unwonted  numbers  strolled 
along  the  lifted  planks  at  the  sea's  verge, 
generally  smoking  as  they  loitered  onward, 
and  having  upon  them  a  loose  and  easy  air 
as  of  briefly- dismissed  business  worries  and 
relaxed  social  conventions. 

Everywhere  in  street  and  veranda  were 
noise  and  bustle  and  pressing  crowds.  The 
office  of  the  Dorsheimer  Arms  was  thronged 
to  the  doors.  A  large  placard  on  the  clerk's 
desk  announced  a  "  Full-dress  Hop,"  and  the 
notable  absence  from  view  of  young  women 
seemed  to  indicate  special  toilet-making  in 
honor  of  the  occasion. 

Wade,  leaning  against  a  porch  pillar,  was 
talking  to  a  man  with  whom  he  had  a  casual 
acquaintance — a  man  whose  presence  at  Hil- 
dreth  was  directly  owing  to  Miss  Gayle.  It 
was  not,  however,  as  a  suitor  to  the  young 
woman  that  Mr.  Bailey  had  come  to  the 


29 


beach,  unless,  incidentally,  love,  as  a  divert- 
ing but  inconsequent  feature  of  life,  should 
develop  from  the  purely  business  arrange- 
ments he  was  seeking. 

"  He's  going  to  take  out  '  The  King's  Jest- 
ers,' "  Grace  had  told  Wade.  "  But  I  don't 
think  I'll  sign  with  him.  I'm  a  big  feature 
now,  and  I  don't  have  to  leave  town.  He's 
made  me  good  offers,  Bailey  has,  and  I  like 
him  first-rate  ;  he's  a  rattling  manager.  Just 
made  Daisy  Higby — a  pretty  little  dancer, 
though  not  original  at  all.  I  guess  he's  been 
everything — from  a  district  messenger-boy  to 
a  government  detective.  He  knows  the  ropes, 
and  he'd  push  me.  But  I'm  not  spoiling  for 
the  circuit.  New  York's  good  enough  for 
me." 

Mr.  Bailey,  perhaps  with  a  sustaining  be- 
lief in  his  persuasive  powers,  had  just  stated 
to  Wade  his  design  of  "  putting  in  "  a  couple 
of  weeks  at  Hildreth. 

"I'd  like  to  make  terms  with  Gracie,"  he 
owned.  "She  isn't  as  handsome  as  some, 
and  her  voice  is  n.  g.  But  she's  got  a  trick 
with  a  house  —  magnetism,  maybe.  She's 
dead  sure  of  a  call  when  the  star  hasn't 


caught  on  a  little."  Bailey  had  about  him  a 
sort  of'  boyish  candor  which  people  usually 
found  rather  winning.  He  was  slim  and  un- 
dersized, with  a  face  whose  mild  ingenuous- 
ness sheathed  an  expression  as  keen  as  a 
blade.  There  was  a  dimple  in  his  chin.  He 
had  blue  eyes,  and  a  mustache  as  yellow  as 
the  breast  of  a  meadow-lark.  But  the  frank- 
ness of  his  glance  held  a  furtive  element;  an 
air  of  the  hoodlum  clung  to  him ;  his  men- 
tal outlook  seemed  cunning  rather  than  in- 
telligent. The  New  York  streets  had  been 
Bailey's  teachers  in  the  game  of  life,  and  if 
he  knew  how  to  load  the  dice  it  was  perhaps 
not  altogether  odd. 

As  the  two  men  elbowed  their  way  across 
the  porch  and  strolled  seaward  they  reviewed 
Miss  Gayle's  capabilities  and  discussed  the 
theatrical  outlook  generally. 

"We've  lost  our  best,"  said  Wade,  as 
they  came  to  the  north  end  of  the  walk,  al- 
ways comparatively  free  of  strollers  because 
distant  from  the  band -stands,  "and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  there  is  no  sign  of  any  superlative 
talent  among  our  younger  players.  Grace,  fa- 
cility, intelligence,  and  taste  we  have  in  abun- 


31 


dance,  but  the  mantle  of  Booth,  Barrett,  or 
McCullough  has  fallen  on  no  one's  shoul- 
ders. Well,  perhaps  the  question  of  purely 
original  genius  is  less  a  matter  of  supply  than 
of  demand  !  It's  the  Gracie  Gayle  sort  of 
thing  that  people  care  for  nowadays." 

"  It's  the  age  of  vaudeville.'1'' 

"  Yes ;  of  the  pirouette.  It's  rose-wreaths, 
not  bay,  that  catch  us.  And,  by  gad !  if  we 
consent  to  take  anything  seriously  it's  got  to 
be  uncommon,  with  a  psychological  twist  in 
the  stuff :  Ibsen,  and  those  other  fellows — 
Maeterlinck,  Sudermann,  Streiedberg." 

"  Oh,  taste  changes,"  debated  the  other, 
leaning  on  one  of  the  damp  benches,  and 
watching  the  cliffy  rise  of  the  waxing  break- 
ers. "  But  I  believe  there's  always  a  steady 
interest  in  the  old  legitimate  plays  —  down 
under  the  passing  notion  for  farce  and  phi- 
losophy, I  mean.  Let  a  man  do  Hamlet  well, 
and  he'll  find  a  public  any  time.  By-the-bye, 
speaking  of  Hamlet,  have  you  ever  seen  young 
Vercamp  do  the  gloomy  Dane  ?" 

"  Vercamp  ?" 

"  I  guess  he's  never  showed  in  the  East ; 
but  he's  got  a  future,  that  chap.  Only  twenty 


or  so  ;  chock-full  of  talent.  I've  my  eye  on 
him.  He's  a  little  raw  yet,  bat  coming  right 
up.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  we've  got  stuff  in  this 
country !  There's  the  Averne  girl,  too.  I 
saw  her  play  Juliet  a  year  ago  in  a  hole  of  a 
Missouri  town.  Lank,  unformed,  scared-look- 
ing thing ;  but  fire  ?  Jove  !  She'll  never 
catch  on,  though,  till  she's  pushed.  I  tell 
you,"  cried  Bailey,  lashing  the  darkness  with 
the  butt  of  a  cigarette,  "  Rachel  wouldn't  draw 
in  these  times  without  paper  and  pushing." 

The  peals  of  a  three-piece  band  broke  on 
their  ears  while  they  were  yet  a  long  way 
from  the  Dorsheimer  Arms.  Through  the 
long  windows  of  the  dance -hall  the  young 
men  could  see  a  maze  of  moving  figures.  Peo- 
ple sat  thick  about  the  walls  and  thronged 
the  thresholds.  The  windows  facing  the 
court-yard  were  black  with  the  visages  of  the 
servants  of  the  house  looking  in  upon  the 
dancers. 

Most  of  the  women  were  in  evening-gowns. 
Among  the  men  an  occasional  dress-suit  re- 
vealed itself,  but  for  the  greater  part  tweeds 
and  flannels  prevailed.  The  girls  seemed  gen- 
erally young  and  good-looking,  with  a  predis- 


33 


position  to  overreach  their  partners  in  weight 
and  robustness,  for  the  men  were  notably  pale 
and  thin.  Their  lack  of  brawn  and  buoyancy 
suggested  long  hours  in  great  furnace-heated 
shops  or  close  offices. 

This  same  phenomenon  of  comparison  pre- 
sented itself  in  the  older  folk,  complacently 
observing  their  sons  and  daughters  circle 
round  the  waxed  floor.  Whether  the  women 
had  paid  court  to  fashion  in  crimping  their 
gray  locks  and  cramping  their  ample  waists, 
or  whether  they  abided  in  the  traditions  of 
a  youth  which  had  gone  decent  in  smooth 
hair  and  plain  gowns,  all  had  a  ponderous 
well-fed  aspect,  as  set  off  against  the  leanness 
of  the  elderly  men. 

"  Fine  figures  of  girls,"  commented  Bailey. 

"  M — yes.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  the  wom- 
an's question  would  eventually  become  a  mere 
matter  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest ;  for,  gad ! 
it  looks  as  if  a  few  ages  more  would  elimi- 
nate men  entirely  from  the  social  equation  of 
the  masses."  He  broke  off  to  address  Gracie 
Gayle,  who  floated  towards  them  in  an  interval 
of  the  music. 

"  Of  course  you  want  to  dance  with  me  ?" 

3 


she  signified,  tilting  forward  on  her  scarlet 
heels. 

"  I  long,  but  forbear,"  said  Wade,  lazily. 
"  I  bless  thee,  yet  renounce  thee  to  thy  face." 
Yet  Grace,  frilled  round  in  flimsy  scarlet, 
and  with  a  red  rose  coquetting  it  behind  one 
ear,  was  not  without  a  charm  of  her  own. 
She  had  the  air  and  stature  of  a  child,  but  in 
her  clear  eyes  was  the  piquancy  of  a  deeper 
knowledge  than  sheltered  women  have.  It 
gave  Wade  something  like  a  twitch  of  the 
heart,  a  sentiment  both  pitiful  and  admiring, 
to  think  of  the  paths  through  which  those 
small  feet  had  marched  so  securely. 

He  watched  Bailey  move  away  with  her. 
There  was  an  initiatory  rasp  of  a  violin,  and 
Wade,  with  the  idea  of  a  solitary,  pensive 
cigar,  made  way  through  the  packed  chairs 
and  pushed  towards  the  remote,  unthronged 
end  of  the  gallery. 

As  he  approached  this  quiet  spot,  however, 
the  violent  flickering  of  the  big  arc-light  over 
the  curb  pointed  the  fact  of  a  chair  drawn  up 
in  the  very  situation  he  had  figured.  He  was 
almost  upon  it  before  he  saw  that  a  woman 
was  sitting  there  with  her  chin  in  her  hand 


"A  CIIAIK  DRAWN  UP  IN  THE  VERY  SITUATION  HE 
HAD  FIGURED" 


35 


and  with  her  eyes  set  on  the  fog  trailing  past 
the  high  globe  of  the  electric  lamp. 

At  Wade's  approach  she  turned  with  a  de- 
cided start,  and,  recognizing  him,  said,  "  Oh  !" 
and  sank  back  as  with  a  sort  of  relief. 

"You  are  not  dancing,"  said  Wade,  whose 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Ruley's  young  daugh- 
ter was  still  of  a  limited  nature. 

"  I — a  preacher's  child  ?" 

"  Oh  !"  laughed  Wade,  encouraged  by  her 
own  smile.  "  But  the  dance  may  express 
anything — grief,  triumph,  joy,  even  religious 
ecstasy."  The  ball-room  music  struck  through 
this  idea,  compacting  itself  with  the  young 
man's  sense  of  the  salt  air  straying  palpably 
across  his  face.  Whatever  those  strains 
might  mean  to  young  blood,  Wade  reflected 
that  they  had  probably  sent  Mr.  Ruley  to 
bed  filled  with  an  anguished  consciousness  of 
desperate  iniquity  on  the  part  of  the  "  god- 
less hordes  of  fashion  "  he  figured  as  making 
up  the  Hildreth  throngs. 

"  Papa  sees  people  as  weak  and  sinful," 
said  Elizabeth  Ruley,  sighing  a  little.  "And 
he  dislikes  everything  which  identifies  itself 
with  the  folly  of  a  fallen  race.  You  see  ?" 


"  Er— yes." 

"It  seems  terrible  to  him  that  people  on 
the  brink  of — well  of  perdition — should  dis- 
port themselves  with  careless  gayety.  He  has 
always  been  like  one  crying  in  a  wilderness  of 
apathy  and  unconcern.  Poor  papa!"  She 
broke  off  and  fastened  a  questioning  eye  on 
Wade.  "  He's  told  you,  hasn't  he,  about  his 
trouble  with  the  church  at  home  ?" 

"  About  their  asking  him — " 

"  To  resign  —  yes.  That  was  a  terrible 
time.  He  had  preached  there  so  long !  I 
don't  think  he  ever  suspected  that  they  were 
tired  of  him  and  his  ways.  And  indeed  there 
were  those  who  stood  by  him.  But  a  young- 
er generation  had  come  up — a  generation 
demanding  revised  scriptures  and  changed 
creeds  and  general  good  cheer  from  the  sac- 
ramental cup.  They  wanted  a  sparkling,  en- 
livening vintage  instead  of  the  drink  my 
father  gave  them.  They  didn't  want  to  hear 
about  their  shortcomings,  or  the  insecuri- 
ty and  bitterness  of  life.  They  said  that 
papa  preached  over  their  heads  and  didn't 
attract  the  young  people,  and  they  sent  a 
committee  to  ask  him  to  give  up  the  charge. 


Oh,  it  was  terrible  !  Their  dissatisfaction  was 
like  a  thunder-bolt  to  papa.  I  cannot  repeat 
all  he  said  to  them  in  his  last  sermon.  But 
he  denounced  them  without  measure,  and  he 
never  entered  the  pulpit  again,  nor  has  he 
ever  been  the  same  since.  He  shut  himself 
for  three  days  in  his  study,  and  would  not 
speak  even  to  me.  And  when  he  finally  tot- 
tered out  he  looked  like  a  man  who  has  got 
his  death-blow — though  that  was  four  years 
since." 

She  paused  with  a  tremor  in  her  soft  voice. 
The  night  wind  chopped  round  the  porch  end 
with  a  mournful  cry.  The  fog,  slipping  past 
the  high  globe,  took  the  likeness  of  fleeting 
figures.  It  seemed  as  if  the  darkness  were 
full  of  homeless  sprites,  which,  as  they  sped 
past  the  globe  of  flame,  shivered  closer  to  it 
for  the  warmth  and  light. 

Sitting  in  the  hazy  shadows  Elizabeth 
Ruley  herself  looked  hardly  real,  so  white 
and  slight  she  seemed  in  her  black  garments. 
The  weight  which  her  father  bore  had  crushed 
her  also.  She  seemed  the  merest  shadow  of 
girlhood,  a  passive,  cloistral  sort  of  creature, 
unused  to  the  sun,  and  altogether  too  spirit- 


38 


less  to  resent  the  unnatural  gloom  in  which 
she  dwelt. 

Two  people  were  coming  down  the  porch. 

"  Feel  how  damp  my  hair  is !"  cried  one  of 
them,  a  girl,  shaking  her  brine-touched  curls. 
"  It'll  he  straight  as  a  poker  before  I  can  turn 
round."  She  peered  down  the  veranda,  and, 
seeing  Wade,  tripped  towards  him,  holding  up 
her  scarlet  ruffles.  Seeing  that  he  was  not 
alone  she  drew  wide  eyes  and  pointed  a  small 
finger. 

"  So  !"  she  said.  "  You  are  having  it  all  to 
yourself  down  there." 

"  I  was  just  going  in,"  the  other  woman 
said,  smiling  a  little  as  she  rose.  "  If  you 
will  excuse  me,"  she  added,  to  Wade.  He 
felt  a  vivid  sense  of  resentment  at  Gracie  for 
disturbing  a  talk  which  had,  at  least,  held  a 
certain  element  of  sympathy.  But  Gracie  her- 
self seemed  unaware  of  this.  She  perched  on 
the  low  porch-rail  beside  him,  with  her  frills 
drawn  up,  her  red  heels  swinging,  her  hair 
loosening  in  great  waves  as  the  dampness 
brushed  over  it.  The  whole  salt -smelling 
darkness  appeared  as  if  disturbed  by  her 
frivolous  presence.  Wade  rose  irritably,  ob- 


39 


serving  the  slight,  dark -gowned  figure  of 
Elizabeth  Ruley  pausing  just  then  at  the 
turn  of  the  circling  stair.  She  had  evidently 
forgotten  her  room-key,  and  came  down  to  get 
it  from  the  clerk. 

"  I  think  she  likes  me  better  than  she  did 
at  first,"  Gracie  was  saying.  "  I  knew  I'd  win 
if  I  played  long  enough  on  one  color !"  Her 
tone  rang  complacently  in  Wade's  ear  as  he 
moved  towards  the  office  door.  Elizabeth  had 
turned  again  to  the  stairway,  but  Wade  was 
withheld  from  noticing  her  further  by  a  sud- 
den recognition  of  the  fact  that  Bailey,  stand- 
ing just  in  the  embrasure  of  the  door,  had  his 
ingenuous  eyes  fixed  intently  on  the  ascend- 
ing figure  of  Mr.  Ruley's  daughter.  Wade 
stepped  over  the  threshold.  As  he  did  so 
Bailey  withdrew  his  gaze  and  turned  rather 
quickly. 

"  Wade,"  he  said,  shortly,  "  you  were  talk- 
ing to  her  out  there.  Who  is  she? — that 
girl !" 


IV 


WADE  regarded  his  questioner  with  dis- 
tinct coldness. 

"  That  is  Miss  Ruley,"  he  said,  briefly. 

"  Miss  Ruley  2" 

"Miss  Ruley.  You'll  find  my  statement 
corroborated  in  the  register."  And  remem- 
bering the  scrawling  entry  which  had  afford- 
ed him  the  information  which  Bailey  was 
now  seeking,  he  murmured,  " '  The  Rev. 
Thomas  Ruley  and  daughter,  High  Ripple, 
Indiana.' " 

"  Thanks,"  said  Bailey,  staring  a  little. 

His  voice  had  lapsed  to  an  accent  of  indif- 
ference. Having  lighted  a  cigarette  he  turned 
away.  Wade  looked  after  him  thoughtfully, 
being  somewhat  amused  at  the  briefly  vivid 
character  of  the  young  man's  interest  in  Eliza- 
beth Ruley.  It  seemed,  as  days  went  on, 
that  this  interest  had  been,  indeed,  of  a  mo- 
mentary nature,  for  Bailey  made  no  effort 


at  seeking  any  acquaintance  with  the  young 
woman  in  question,  though  the  exigencies  of 
the  hotel  porch  and  the  considerate  offices  of 
Miss  Gayle  forced  him  into  such  social  knowl- 
edge of  the  preacher's  daughter  as  an  intro- 
duction is  supposed  to  effect. 

These  same  days  cast  Wade  considerably 
with  the  Ruleys.  Some  latent  fibre  of  the 
old  man's  being  responded  to  the  other's 
quiet  whimsicality.  Wade  was  wise  enough 
never  to  combat  any  of  the  preacher's  pro- 
nounced and  contorted  views,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence the  relations  between  them  came  to 
be  of  a  pleasant  and  friendly  sort. 

Everything  at  Hildreth  wore  a  gentle  as- 
pect. The  sea  was  a  bland  sheet  of  milky 
green,  whose  shallow  breakers  wreathed  the 
sands  in  blossomy  white ;  the  skies  hung 
placid  ;  the  very  multitudes  seemed  to  im- 
bibe a  certain  languid  quietude  from  the  mid- 
summer serenity. 

Of  mornings  every  one  went  bathing,  and 
the  pole-spiked  surf  resembled  a  great  human 
brew,  bubbling  up  with  heads  and  arms.  At 
a  little  distance  the  bathers  lost  all  mortal 
significance,  seeming  rather  like  the  top  twigs 


42 


of  a  submerged  forest,  peaking  rough  and 
black  through  the  circling  waves.  On  the 
warm  sand  under  the  biggest  pavilion  peo- 
ple squatted  at  ease,  watching  the  antics  of 
the  bathers.  The  number  of  these  constantly 
grew,  as  men  and  women  in  baggy  blue  flan- 
nels strolled  seaward  from  the  bath-houses. 

Children  with  wood  spades  cast  up  frail 
fortifications  against  the  surf.  They  shouted 
as  they  worked,  and  a  small  dog,  digging  in 
the  sand  just  beyond  the  usual  station  of  Mr. 
Ruley's  chair,  barked  furiously  at  some  im- 
aginary quarry.  Mr.  Ruley  spoke  to  him 
twice  in  a  mildly  reproachful  way,  for  the 
shrill  staccato  barks  made  his  ears  tingle. 
But  the  terrier  kept  on  honey-combing  the 
beach  with  his  sharp  paws.  His  flanks  shook, 
his  eyes  bulged  in  an  ecstasy  of  pursuit,  and 
he  appeared  unconscious  of  the  gaunt  figure 
hard  by,  bent  together  under  its  plaid  shawl, 
and  holding  on  its  knee  a  package  of  small 
leaflets. 

Whenever  any  one  strolled  near  his  chair 
Mr.  Ruley  held  out  one  of  the  pamphlets. 
No  one  refused  the  offering  of  the  shaking 
hand,  and  the  old  man's  purblind  gaze  failed 


to  see,  blowing  airily  along  the  sands,  the 
sheets  so  lately  received  of  him  with  good- 
natured  indifference.  Now  and  then  one  of 
these  printed  squares,  motionless  in  the  wane 
of  the  breeze,  displayed  a  heading  which  ex- 
horted, announced,  or  appealed.  Oftener  they 
were  trodden  down  by  the  feet  of  passers,  or 
were  carried  over  the  water,  lifting  and  hurt- 
ling along  like  callow  gulls. 

Wade,  coming  down  the  beach  in  bathing 
apparel,  paused  beside  the  chair.  Mr.  Ruley 
tremulously  proffered  a  leaf  bearing  a  pious 
adjuration,  but,  recognizing  the  young  man, 
he  laid  the  thing  back  and  seemed  to  bright- 
en up. 

"  I  do  not  give  these  to  you,  a  thinking 
man,"  he  explained.  "  They  are  for  the  care- 
less. I  doubt  if  one  in  a  thousand  reads  or 
heeds  the  admonition.  But  barren  as  my 
ministry  has  been  the  habit  of  the  sower 
sticks  with  me,  and,  though  I  scatter  seed 
upon  rock,  I  cannot  withhold  my  hand." 

A  girl,  screaming  with  laughter  and  spray- 
ing the  air  with  brine  from  her  wet  short 
skirts,  flew  by,  pursued  by  a  brawny  young 
fellow.  Children  were  wading  in  the  low 


44 


shore-surf.  Lovers  mooned  together  on  the 
sea  verge.  Portly  women  gossiped  on  the 
benches  above  the  sand.  Against  all  this 
Mr.  Ruley  looked  singularly  lonely,  and  Wade 
glanced  about,  wondering  if  Elizabeth  were 
not  somewhere  near. 

"  Elizabeth  is  walking  with  a  friend  of 
ours,"  said  the  other,  catching  at  Wade's 
intent — "a  friend  from  High  Ripple,  who 
came  rather  unexpectedly  this  morning.  A 
young  man  " — he  amplified,  taking  his  usual 
oratorical  style,  which  reduced  the  single  hear- 
er to  an  indefinite  part  of  a  visionary  throng 
— "  of  much  promise.  A  laborer  like  myself 
in  the  Lord's  vineyard,  but  blessed  with  fruit- 
ful ingathering."  He  sighed  and  laid  his 
long  arms  over  his  breast.  "  You  have  heard 
me  speak  of  the  Rev.  Frederic  Clinton  Gra- 
ham ?" 

"  Oh  yes  !"  signified  Wade,  not  altogether 
charmed  with  this  intelligence.  He  had 
heard  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Graham,  as  he  had 
heard  of  many  other  features  of  High  Rip- 
ple— of  the  old  house  in  which  the  Ruleys 
lived,  the  discovery  of  gas  in  the  town's 
outskirts,  the  worthy  few  who  stood  faithful 


4,3 


to  their  old  pastor,  and  the  new  congregation 
which  had  ousted  him. 

Mr.  Graham,  as  Wade  remembered,  did  not 
belong  to  the  ante-gas  epoch.  The  drowsy 
village  had  become  a  bustling  town  before 
Mr.  Ruley's  young  friend  came  to  shed  a 
genial  influence  upon  it.  For  that  Mr.  Graham 
had  extremely  pleasing  traits  Wade  could 
scarcely  doubt,  in  view  of  the  surprising  fact 
that  the  man  commanded  the  warmest  affec- 
tion not  only  of  Mr.  Ruley's  former  congre- 
gation, but  also  of  Mr.  Kuley  himself. 

Just  in  what  sort  he  was  regarded  by  Mr. 
Ruley's  daughter  Wade  could  only  surmise. 
The  mere  circumstance  of  Graham's  presence 
in  Hildreth  was  suggestive  of  possibilities 
which  Wade  had  not  considered  before,  and 
the  young  man  drew  a  grim  smile  as  it  came 
upon  him  that  his  own  cordial  intercourse  with 
the  Ruleys  was  likely  to  be  disturbed  by 
Graham's  arrival. 

At  the  consciousness  that  his  face  was  tak- 
ing on  a  sulky  cast  Wade  straightened  his 
shoulders.  What  difference  did  it  make  that 
a  young  woman  whom  he  had  known  for  sev- 
eral weeks  was  perhaps  the  sweetheart  of  a 


46 


worthy  Indiana  clergyman  ?  He,  Wade,  was 
not  in  love ;  and,  now  that  he  came  to  think 
of  it,  he  was  glad  that  he  was  not.  For,  aside 
from  the  chance  of  a  prior  suitor,  Wade  de- 
clared to  himself  the  connubial  vista  had  no 
charms  worth  setting  off  against  the  easy- 
going privileges  of  bachelorhood  —  that  is, 
for  men  of  moderate  finances.  Domestic  life 
in  New  York  apartment-houses  did  not  win 
upon  Wade's  fancy.  These  thousand-celled 
hives  of  the  city's  millions  were  most  unat- 
tractive to  him,  and  he  cheerfully  reconciled 
himself  to  the  perpetual  loneliness  which  has 
so  placid  and  pleasant  a  face  when  examined 
by  the  heart-free. 

Reverting  to  these  early  principles,  Wade 
walked  into  the  surf  and  dashed  off,  with  a 
handful  of  brine,  a  half-formulated  vision  of 
Mr.  Graham  as  a  mild  young  man,  whose 
conciliating  chin  sheered  meekly  into  a  white 
lawn  tie. 

"No  doubt  he's  mighty  at  mothers'  meet- 
ing, and  waxes  tearful  over  the  babies  he 
baptizes,"  thought  Wade.  "And  Elizabeth 
is  cut  out  for  a  preacher's  wife — little,  sweet, 
serious  thing  she  is !" 


47 


That  evening,  as  he  came  down  to  supper, 
he  encountered  Grace  Gayle  in  the  office. 
Grace  wore  a  thoughtful  air,  and  she  drew 
Wade  aside  with  an  imperative  nod. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  observed,  gravely, 
"  that  you  are  not  in  it  ?  Have  you  seen  the 
new  man  ?  He's  been  with  Miss  Ruley  all  day." 

"  Alas,  yes !"  sighed  Wade,  elaborately. 
"  I  know  that  my  goose  is  cooked.  I've  got 
a  life-long  sorrow  to  cherish,  Gracie.  I've 
always  wanted  something  I  could  entirely 
devote  myself  to." 

"  Laugh  it  off  as  much  as  you  please," 
scoffed  Gracie,  "  but  it  won't  take  me  in.  I 
know  something  about  men.  None  of  'em 
likes  to  take  a  back  seat.  It  isn't  human 
nature.  So  come  off." 

"  What  would  you  have  me  do — go  about 
with  a  pale,  disordered  look  ?" 

"  I'd  have  you  keep  right  to  the  front. 
This  Graham's  good-looking — splendid  shoul- 
ders— looks  like  he  might  be  a  great  centre- 
rush — but  I  believe  you  can  beat  his  time. 
Take  your  hands  out  of  your  vest-pockets, 
and  stop  biting  yoitr  mustache  !  Throw  your 
shoulders  back — "  > 


48 


"  I  stoop  to  conquer,  Gracie."  x 

"  — and  let  him  see  that  you're  not  going  to 
be  overlooked  in  the  shuffle.  I'd  stay  right 
with  'em  all  the  time.  That'll  queer  the 
whole  business.  He  can't  make  love  with 
you  around." 

She  gave  him  a  reassuring  pat  as  she  slipped 
away. 

As  Wade  stood  in  the  porchway  after  sup- 
per, and  took  critical  stock  of  the  man  who 
sat  talking  with  the  Ruleys,  he  was  aware  of 
a  surprised  recognition  of  the  justice  of  Miss 
Gayle's  opinions.  He  was  no  ascetic  strip- 
ling, this  big  fellow  at  Elizabeth's  side.  He 
had  a  shaven  face  of  a  cordial  turn,  thick, 
breezy  hair,  and  a  hearty  laugh.  Moreover, 
he  wore  a  business-like  suit  of  rough  wool, 
and  the  hat  on  the  floor  near  him  was  of 
white  straw.  There  was  a  red  flower  in  his 
button-hole.  He  was  young  and  athletic, 
with  nothing  whatever  about  him  intimative 
of  stripes  or  fasting. 

Mr.  Ruley,  catching  Wade's  eye,  bent  for- 
ward and  summoned  him.  There  was  noth- 
ing then  for  the  young  man  but  to  join  the 
little  group  and  extend  a  genial  hand  to  the 


49 


person  whom  Mr.  Ruley  affectionately  termed 
Lis  "own  son  in  the  faith."  Presently  he 
was  sitting  with  them  as  usual  of  evenings, 
while  the  crowd  surged  by  on  its  way  to  the 
beach,  and  lights  struck  out  of  the  twilight, 
and  music  began  to  lilt  up  near  and  far. 

"  These  thousands  of  human  creatures,  un- 
deterred from  their  follies  by  the  awful  so- 
lemnity of  the  great  sea,  afford  an  appalling 
example  of  the  blindness  of  such  as  are  carnal 
and  sold  unto  sin,"  said  Mr.  Ruley.  "  You 
must  go  down  and  observe  the  throng  on  the 
beach,  Frederic.  The  frivolity  is,  I  may  say, 
more  marked  at  evening  than  at  other  times. 
For  night  brings  thoughts  of  prayer  and  medi- 
tation to  our  hearts,  and  here  the  darkening 
hours  are  given  to  unhallowed  revelry." 

Graham  assented.  Easy  acquiescence  ap- 
peared, indeed,  to  be  his  marked  character- 
istic. 

"  What's  the  use  of  setting  yourself  against 
the  big  currents?"  he  inquired  of  Wade, 
when  their  acquaintance  had  reached  a  stand- 
ing of  several  days.  "You  don't  accomplish 
anything  by  it,  except  to  get  knocked  ashore, 
a  mere  bit  of  wreckage." 


50 


"  Queer  doctrine  for  one  of  your  profes- 
sion," Wade  threw  in.  But  Graham  laughed 
his  hearty,  honest  laugh. 

"  Bah  !"  he  said.  "  There's  no  reason  why 
a  preacher  shouldn't  talk  sense.  In  fact,  he's 
got  to  talk  it  if  he  expects  to  reach  people. 
They've  ceased  to  care  for  rambling  meta- 
physical dissertations.  You've  got  to  appeal 
to  men's  business  as  well  as  to  their  bosoms. 
These  aren't  visionary  times."  He  added, 
in  a  moment,  "  Such  as  prevailed  when  ideas 
of  special  ordination  were  still  active." 

"  Oh,  then  you  don't  hold  for  a  chosen 
generation,  a  royal  priesthood  ?" 

"  Me  ? — no.  Personally  I  do  not.  I  didn't 
go  into  the  Church  because  I  saw  visions  or 
heard  the  heathen  clamoring  for  my  aid.  I 
took  up  theology — as  perhaps  others  do — just 
as  I  would  have  taken  up  any  profession.  It's 
a  respectable  calling,  and  I  had  my  living  to 
make.  I  don't  see  that  a  fellow  who  accepts 
it  in  a  business-like  way  is  any  less  honest 
than  one  who  is  a  bit  exalted  and  yearns  over 
humanity." 

"  Maybe  not.  But  preaching  don't  pay 
very  well,  Graham.  This  is  not  the  era  when 


51 


prelates  '  riot  in  ease  and  cumbrous  wealth.' 
A  man's  generally  disinterested  when  he 
dons  the  beretta.  He  has  a  right  to  be  thought 
so,  anyhow." 

"  It  all  depends  on  his  objectives.  I  admit 
that  the  pulpit  isn't  specially  lavish  in  finan- 
cial returns;  but,  like  literature,  it  has  its  com- 
pensations. A  clergyman  has  position.  He 
has  also  what  is  highly  exceptional  in  the  rush 
of  modern  life — time  to  think,  to  plan,  to  live. 
I  took  this  into  consideration.  I  wanted  lei- 
sure. I  wanted  a  calling  in  which  my  knack 
of  speaking  plainly  and  easily  would  count. 
I  had  no  pronounced  convictions — few  peo- 
ple have — concerning  religious  dogma.  But 
I  got  my  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  times 
and  found  what  the  masses  felt  on  these  sub- 
jects. And  then  I  established  myself  on  this 
base,  reflecting  that  it's  well 

"  '  When  you  censure  the  age 
To  be  cautious  and  sage.1 

A  preacher's  function,  as  I  see  it,  is  merely 
to  direct  the  religious  ceremonials  of  a 
community.  He's  got  to  be  tip  to  date  and 
know  the  moral  taste  of  the  people.  He  must 


52 


feed  them  according  to  the  demands  of  their 
palate,  and  not,  for  their  own  good  even, 
force  nauseous  doctrine  down  their  unwilling 
throats.  Otherwise  he'll  find  himself  a  fail- 
ure— like  our  old  friend  yonder.  He  had 
passion  and  patience,  and  he  wrought  like  a 
slave  to  cause  his  people  to  see  the  wisdom 
of  so  fashioning  their  lives  as  to  merit  heaven 
by  making  life  a  hell.  They  were  not  built 
on  that  plan,  however !"  The  Rev.  Mr.  Gra- 
ham paused  to  laugh  again. 

"  I  haven't  half  his  powers,"  he  went  on ; 
"but  while  he  preached  to  empty  pews,  my 
church — which  was  also  his — is  jammed  to 
the  walls.  My  piety  is  of  a  gladsome  order. 
I'm  easy,  colloquial,  humane.  By  a  contin- 
ual rattling  hail  of  sharp  points — anecdotes, 
metaphors,  allusions — I  riddle  the  veil  of  ap- 
athy so  apt  to  clog  the  Sabbath  intelligence. 
I  mix  with  folks  socially.  And  when  they 
have  fairs  and  tableaux  in  the  Sunday-school- 
room I  smile  and  applaud  instead  of  stand- 
ing afar  off  and  bitterly  denouncing  them  for 
desecrating  the  sanctuary  —  as  was  Ruley's 
engaging  habit." 

"I  can  understand  that  you  are  popular," 


53 


intimated  Wade,  conscious  of  a  certain  half- 
amused  distaste. 

"  Oh,  I'm  popular  !"  smiled  Graham.  "  I'm 
a  power  with  the  young  men — the  hardest 
nuts  a  minister  has  to  crack.  I  reach  them 
by  carrying  myself  as  one  familiar  in  the  past 
with  pleasant  little  vices,  and  not  so  far  away 
from  those  laxer  times  as  to  have  forgotten 
the  taste  of  cakes  and  ale,  or  to  have  lost 
sympathy  with  fellows  whose  business  hasn't 
forced  them  to  a  certain  austerity  of  life. 
I've  a  gentle  scourge  for  the  sinner's  back. 
What  I  can't  uphold  in  way  of  social  pas- 
times I  leave  alone."  His  voice  had  a  tone 
of  simple  good-nature,  and  Wade  found  him- 
self liking  this  Timothy  of  the  decadence, 
however  the  young  man's  views  went  cross  to 
his  own  traditions  of  the  priestly  office. 

Graham  had  a  kind  of  primitive  human 
quality,  which,  being  temperamental  and  irre- 
spective of  moral  traits,  must  have  attracted 
both  puritan  and  pagan.  He  and  Wade  took 
many  walks  together.  Sometimes  they  rolled 
before  them  old  Mr.  Ruley's  chair.  Some- 
times Elizabeth  joined  them,  and  her  bear- 
ing, so  far  as  Wade  could  see,  put  both 


54 


young  men  upon  an  equal  footing  of  passive 
favor. 

"  To  see  her  disturbed  !"  Wade  sometimes 
said  to  himself,  in  view  of  the  girl's  passion- 
less calm.  "  Anger — anything — would  be  a 
relief.  She  seems  utterly  without  emotional 
capacity,  this  agate-eyed  young  person.  Yet 
we're  generally  hanging  round  her,  I  notice, 
Graham  and  I !" 

One  night  as  the  three  strolled  towards  the 
beach  just  on  the  edge  of  dark,  they  saw  a 
great  moon  heaving  its  rosy  shoulders  above 
the  rippling  dove-hue  of  the  ocean.  Moment- 
ly the  delicate  pink  of  the  rising  sphere 
changed  to  a  clearer  red.  Then  a  hint  of 
orange  dashed  it,  and  suddenly  the  jagged  sea 
appeared  as  if  smitten  across  with  a  blazing 
sword — the  sharp  reflex  of  the  lifting  light. 
It  was  quiet,  almost  lonely,  at  the  farthest 
end  of  the  walk.  Only  the  murmuring  of  the 
surf  took  the  ear,  as  the  rising  tide  nibbled 
with  white  teeth  at  the  crusted  sands.  Against 
the  faded  western  crimson  sparks  of  white  and 
amber  flickered.  A  narrow  lake  to  the  left 
looked  like  a  sprig  of  burnished  coral  under 
the  sinking  redness  of  the  sky. 


66 


Graham,  with  his  hat  far  back,  and  with  a 
cheery  light  in  his  good-looking  face,  talked 
for  the  party.  For  Wade  was  in  a  pensive 
mood,  and  beside  him  Elizabeth  walked  in  si- 
lence, looking  far  out  at  the  water  with  eyes 
which  held  now,  as  ever,  a  teasing  mystery  of 
reticence. 

Two  men  came  in  sight  on  the  board  prom- 
enade. Their  figures  were  outlined  in  solitary 
distinction  upon  the  tremulous  ground  of 
shining  sea.  One  seemed  to  be  a  common- 
looking  fellow  in  smart  but  cheap  attire.  The 
other,  sauntering  nearer,  caught  Wade's  at- 
tention by  reason  of  a  certain  Byronic  affec- 
tation of  languid  cynicism.  He  had  a  dissi- 
pated pallor,  a  limp  shirt-front,  and  longish 
black  coat,  which,  as  he  walked,  whipped 
about  his  knees.  A  general  shabbiness  hung 
over  him.  His  hat  was  rakishly  tipped,  his 
oily  hair  worn  rather  long. 

He  came  on  with  his  companion,  and  threw 
a  glance  upon  the  people  in  the  path.  Sud- 
denly Wade  saw  his  pale  face  light  up.  The 
fellow  paused  as  if  startled,  and  then  strode 
forward  with  a  hand  outstretched. 

"You  here  ?"  he  cried,  in  a  tone  of  enthusi- 


56 


astic  incredulity — "you  here  at  the  beach! 
I  never  dreamed  you — "  He  broke  off  as  if 
the  mere  delight  of  coming  thus  unexpectedly 
upon  Elizabeth  Ruley  had  quite  robbed  him 
of  the  power  of  speech. 

Wade,  pausing  with  the  others,  turned  a 
surprised  glance  upon  the  girl  beside  him.  It 
was  a  mistake,  no  doubt,  this  apparent  recog- 
nition. But  perhaps,  after  all,  she  knew  the 
man — for  she  had  stopped  short  in  the  way, 
and  stood  rigid,  as  if  her  joints  went  stiff 
with  some  most  unwelcome  sense.  She 
seemed  as  if  holding  her  breath,  and  her  eyes 
were  wide.  Then  something  that  was  like  a 
shiver  went  over  her,  and  a  hot  red  shook  in 
her  cheeks. 

"  How  strange,"  she  said,  advancing  a  step 
to  meet  the  man's  reaching  hand  —  "how 
strange  to  meet  you  here  !"  And  turning  to 
Wade  and  Graham,  she  added,  "  Mr.  Wilmuth 
is  an  old — friend  of  mine.  I  should  like  to 
speak  to  him  about  something  in  which  we 
are  mutually  interested — if  you  will  walk  on 
and  let  me  catch  up  with  you  presently  ?" 


THE  two  men  thus  admonished  walked  on- 
ward. A  certain  sense  of  strangeness  hung 
in  the  moral  atmosphere ;  but  neither  of  them 
spoke  of  the  matter.  Graham's  brow  had,  for 
a  moment,  a  drawn  sort  of  expression.  Then 
as  the  refrain  of  a  distant  band  wandered  to 
his  ears  he  began  to  hum  the  melody.  Some 
girls  with  white  scarfs  on  their  heads  passed 
by,  casting  gay  glances  at  the  young  men, 
and  Graham  regarded  them  without  clerical 
severity. 

"  I  used  to  like  girls  like  that — full  of  go 
and  gayety — till  I  met  Miss  Ruley,"  he  ob- 
served. "  In  fact,  I  was  interested  in  her  be- 
fore I  ever  saw  her,  from  hearing  her  father 
talk.  As  soon  as  I  reached  the  town  I  heard 
of  his  troubles,  and  I  went  to  see  him.  He 
rather  took  to  me,  strangely  enough;  and  I 
learned  of  his  daughter.  He  used  to  read  me 
parts  of  her  daily  letters — faithful  girl,  that ! 


So  I  felt  well  acquainted  with  her  when  she 
came  home  in  March.  The  old  man  gave  down 
completely  at  that  time,  and  she  dropped  ev- 
erything and  came  to  him.  Of  course,  living 
as  she  does  with  a  friend  of  the  family,  it  was 
less  difficult  than  it  might  have  been  in  other 
circumstances." 

Graham  stopped  to  yawn  and  look  round. 
Elizabeth  was  coming  towards  them.  Her  lit- 
tle light  figure  swept  along  the  walk  with  di- 
minutive dignity,  and  she  was  quite  alone. 
Whatever  had  become  of  her  friend  Mr.  Wil- 
muth,  it  seemed  as  if  his  absence  had  only  a 
quieting  effect  upon  Elizabeth  ;  for  her  face 
was  bright,  and  a  kind  of  smile  touched  and 
left  her  lips  as  she  offered  some  word  of  ex- 
cuse for  delaying  the  two. 

When  they  came  to  the  hotel  porch  Mr. 
Ruley  murmured  a  little  at  being  so  long 
left  by  himself. 

"  Miss  Ruley  met  a  friend  " —  unadvisedly 
began  Graham,  stopping  short,  however,  with 
a  late  instinct  of  discretion. 

"  Of  ours — from  home  ?"  cut  in  the  old 
man. 

"  No,  no,  papa !"  said  Elizabeth  —  a  small 


69 


laugh  actually  rippling  from  her  throat  as  she 
laid  her  hand  on  his  white,  rough  hair — "  a 
man  I  met  since  I've  been  away  from  In- 
diana." 

"  Why  did  you  not  bring  him  back  to  the 
hotel  with  you  ?"  asked  Mr.  Ruley.  "  Your 
friends,  my  child,  have  —  I  may  say,  my 
warmest  interest.  I  have  often  wished  that 
the  seclusion  of  your  life  were  less  extreme. 
You  are  but  young." 

"  I'm  but  a  lassie  yet,"  smiled  Elizabeth. 
And  she  took  up  lightly  the  song,  pointing 
the  words  with  pretty  gestures,  and  leaning 
as  she  sang  against  the  old  man's  shoulder. 
The  fitful  glaring  of  the  curb-lamp,  struggling 
with  a  defective  carbon,  discovered  a  soft 
dimple  in  her  cheek,  a  clean-cut  reft  in  her 
chin,  the  darkness  and  warmth  in  her  eyes  of 
the  fruit  of  the  wild  blackthorn. 

With  this  natural,  girlish  mood  upon  her, 
she  was  so  unlike  her  usual  cold  and  silent 
self  that  Wade  had  a  visionary  feeling  in 
observing  her.  Against  the  yellow,  lace-fes- 
tooned windows  of  the  lighted  parlor  she  ap- 
peared quaint  and  fantastic,  like  a  thing  fash- 
ioned in  a  dream,  and  subject  to  irrational 


60 


impulses  which  might  cause  her,  on  the  sud- 
den, to  vanish  and  be  nothing. 

A  smell  of  brine  and  honeysuckles  came 
strong  and  sweet.  When  Elizabeth  broke 
into  a  note  of  appreciation,  saying,  "  I  wish  I 
had  a  great  bunch  of  those  fragrant  yellow 
things,"  Wade  rose. 

"  I  will  steal  you  some,"  he  said.  "  They 
are  hanging  their  honey  temptingly  near — 
on  the  next  porch,  in  fact." 

"You  are,  of  course,  merely  jesting?" 
hesitated  Mr.  Ruley,  already  rising  to  go  to 
his  room  for  the  night. 

"  Oh  yes !"  cried  Wade.  "  I  shall  ask  the 
owners'." 

When  he  came  back  presently  with  a  lot 
of  the  dewy  bells  springing  lustily  from  a  mat 
of  flaccid  green  leafage,  he  found  Elizabeth 
alone.  Graham  had  evidently  attended  her 
father  up-stairs.  She  took  the  flowers  eager- 
ly, burying  her  face  in  their  fresh  amber. 

"  Are  they  stolen  sweets  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Will  it  be  a  bond  between  us  if  they 
are  ?" 

"Of  friendship?  —  thieves  do  not  have 
friends,  but  only  evil  associates." 


(11 


"  Oh,  well,"  murmured  Wade,  losing  him- 
self a  little,  "friendship  has  its  limitations! 
I'm  not  sure — "  He  paused  with  a  slight  em- 
barrassment. Was  he  talking  sentiment  to 
the  future  wife  of  the  Rev.  Frederic  Clin- 
ton Graham  ?  He  looked  at  Elizabeth.  Over 
the  bunch  of  honeysuckles,  her  face,  faint- 
ly touched  with  smiles,  with  half  -  mocking 
provocation,  with  the  insidious  glamour  of 
the  moonlight,  had  a  distracting,  altogether 
unusual  witchery.  The  young  man  was 
charmed,  puzzled,  disconcerted.  Was  this 
Elizabeth  ? 

The  noise  of  moving  chairs  and  loitering 
feet  broke  through  his  muse.  People  were 
tramping  back  and  forth  in  an  interval  of  the 
ball-room  music,  and  Wade  felt  the  annoy- 
ance of  a  suddenly  roused  dreamer.  He  cast 
round  upon  the  laughing  crew  a  chastising 
eye. 

"Do  you  mind  the  noises?"  asked  Eliza- 
beth. "They  are  all  so  happy  !" 

"  Maddeningly  so,"  said  Wade,  with  deep 
feeling. 

"  I  forgive  them,"  cried  Elizabeth,  softly. 
"  I'm  charitable  to-night." 


62 


"  Being  yourself  happier  than  usual  ?" 

"  Perhaps.  I  guess  I've  been  quite  con- 
tented all  along,  only  I  didn't  show  it,  be- 
cause I  didn't  know  it !  A  person  may  not 
realize  one  mental  condition  till  brought  face 
to  face  with  its  opposite." 

"  Oh  yes !  averted  peril  teaches  the  sweet- 
ness of  safety,"  said  Wade.  And  then  he 
chilled  with  a  sharp  sense  of  what  this  inad- 
vertent remark  might  convey  to  her.  But  if 
she  took  it  as  an  impertinence  or  a  mere  off- 
shoot of  self-evident  philosophy,  there  was 
nothing  in  her  manner  to  indicate  either. 
Presently  after  she  went  away,  and  left  him  to 
the  multitudinous  loneliness  of  the  jammed 
gallery. 

As  the  days  merged  towards  the  end  of 
August,  Hildreth  was  packed  to  the  very 
gates.  The  wiry  yellow  grasses  along  the 
neat  walks  were  trampled  into  powder.  The 
very  sands,  for  all  the  effacing  fingers  of  the 
tides,  seemed  never  free  of  footprints,  and 
by  day  and  night  the  ocean  promenade,  the 
interior  of  the  town,  lake-sides,  hotels,  and 
the  surf  itself,  were  a  press  of  holiday  folk. 

In   these   times   Mr.  Ruley  seldom   went 


63 


forth  in  his  rolling -chair,  except  early  of 
a  morning,  when  the  beach  was  yet  way- 
free,  and  the  sands  unfrequented  save  for  a 
few  barelegged  men,  who,  with  long  wooden 
rakes,  cleaned  up  the  sea-verge  for  the  day. 

Sometimes  Wade  pushed  the  chair.  But 
since  the  night  when  he  gave  Elizabeth  the 
honeysuckles  he  had  in  some  measure  avoid- 
ed the  old  preacher's  small  circle.  There  had 
been,  on  that  occasion,  a  newness  of  impulse 
in  his  spirit  which  made  him  feel  the  ad- 
visability of  keeping  himself  out  of  harm's 
way,  however  sweet  that  way  might  seem. 
Graham  was  the  favored  suitor.  He,  Wade, 
having  no  chance  for  the  rose,  could  at  least 
withhold  his  flesh  from  the  thorn. 

"  So,"  said  Grace  Gayle,  "  you're  out  of 
the  running  ?" 

"  Ruled  off,"  smiled  Wade. 

"  Don't  you  make  any  mistakes,"  wisely 
admonished  Miss  Gayle.  "  I've  seen  her  look 
at  him,  and  I've  seen  her  look  at  you.'1'1 

"  This  is  most  surprising,"  indicated  Wade, 
with  a  feigned  accent.  "  You  will  pardon 
me,  Gracie,  if  I  scarcely  credit  your  state- 
ment." 


"  Be  sarcastic  if  you  want  to,"  said  Gracie. 
"If  you  knew  anything  at  all,  you'd  know 
that  straws  show  which  way  the  wind  blows. 
When  a  woman  regards  a  man  with  a  kind 
of  flat,  frank  sincerity,  it's  because  her  heart's 
altogether  out  of  his  reach.  When  she  looks 
around  him  rather  than  at  him,  it's  be- 
cause— "  Gracie  lifted  her  shoulders  sug- 
gestively. 

"Grace,"  breathed  Wade,  gravely,  "I  am 
hurt  to  the  quick  to  see  you*  developing  the 
germs  of  what  painfully  resembles  thought. 
For  Heaven's  and  your  sex's  sake,  pause  while 
there  is  yet  time  !  Women  who  form  the 
pernicious  habit  of  thinking  lose  in  time 
the  magic  key  which  unlocks  the  hearts  of 
men." 

Grace  sniffed. 

"  Men's  hearts  are  never  locked,"  she  said, 
sagaciously.  "  The  heavier  the  padlock  the 
smoother  the  hinges."  She  shook  her  crisp 
curls  as  she  tripped  away  with  her  airy,  min- 
cing, soubrette  tread. 

Notwithstanding  the  inconsequent  nature 
of  this  talk,  it  set  Wade  to  thinking.  Per- 
haps he  had  carried  his  principle  of  self- 


65 


effacement  too  far.  At  all  events,  when  he 
next  saw  Miss  Ruley,  he  went  up  to  her  and 
stopped  for  a  moment's  conversation. 

It  chanced  to  be  on  the  sands.  Elizabeth 
was  sitting  by  herself  under  the  arch  of  a 
lace-hung  sunshade,  which  cast  shaking  little 
shadows  on  her  face,  sprigging  it  with  such 
delicate  darknesses  as  lurk  in  the  misty  milk 
of  moss-agate. 

"  You  are  going  in,  then  ?"  she  asked, 
smiling  up  rather  uncertainly,  and  noticing 
his  flannel  attire.  "  Mr.  Graham  is  already 
very  far  out.  That  is  he,  I  think,  taking  that 
big  breaker.  What  a  stroke  !" 

Wade,  focussing  an  indulgent  eye,  saw  a 
figure  away  beyond  the  other  bathers,  rising 
to  the  lift  of  a  great  billow.  The  man  swam 
with  a  splendid  motion.  Whether  he  dived, 
or  floated,  or  circled  his  arms  in  that  whirl- 
ing stroke  of  his,  he  seemed  in  subtle  sym- 
pathy with  the  sea,  possessed  of  a  kinship 
with  it,  and  in  an  element  altogether  his  own. 

Wade  expressed  an  appropriate  sentiment 
of  admiration. 

Just  then  Gracie  Gayle  came  gambolling 
along,  a  childish  shape,  kirtled  to  the  knee 

5 


66 


in  bright  blue,  and  turbaned  in  vivid  scarlet. 
Among  the  loose-waisted  figures  on  the  sands 
she  was  like  a  humming-bird  scintillating  in 
a  staid  gathering  of  barn-yard  fowls.  Bailey 
was  with  her,  having  returned  after  a  fort- 
night's absence. 

The  two  paused  beside  Elizabeth,  and 
Wade  went  on,  confused  by  the  singular 
way  in  which  that  small  fair  face,  shadow- 
streaked  and  faintly  smiling,  lingered  in  his 
vision.  He  was  still  perplexed  with  a  half- 
pleasant,  half -pained  consciousness  of  it  as 
he  plunged  into  the  pushing  surf  and  felt  a 
dizzy  world  of  water  heave  round  him.  The 
surge  was  strong  to-day,  and  the  splashing 
and  screaming  of  the  shore  bathers  sent  him 
farther  and  still  farther  out.  Gradually  their 
cries  lessened  in  his  ear,  and  there  was  with 
him  presently  only  the  hollow  thud  of  the 
waves  and  the  rushing  hiss  of  the  cresting 
foam. 

Once,  as  he  rose  to  a  sea-lift,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  heard  a  sound  that  was  not  the 
boom  of  the  breakers  nor  the  song  of  the 
slipping  froth.  It  came  again,  whatever  it 
was,  and  as  he  gave  ear  he  took  in  a  human 


"  '  MK.    GRAHAM    IS    ALREADY    FAR    OUT  '  " 


67 


intonation,  sharp  and  agonized.  It  was  a 
cry  for  help. 

Wade  shook  the  brine  from  his  hair,  free- 
ing his  gaze  for  an  outlook.  In  the  glassy 
mound  of  water  to  his  right  a  face,  lean  and 
white  with  alarm,  gleamed  and  faded.  That 
the  sinking  man  was  Graham  came  instantly 
to  Wade's  mind — Graham,  a  victim  to  some 
one  of  the  mischances  which  the  sea  reserves 
for  those  who  adventure  too  confidently  with 
her. 

Wade  struck  out  instantly  for  the  spot 
where  Graham's  appalled  features  had  brief- 
ly glimpsed.  Shoreward  he  could  note  an 
increasing  agitation  among  the  multitudes. 
Evidently  the  people  had  noticed  the  peril 
of  the  remote  swimmer  whose  exploits  had  so 
lately  won  admiring  comment.  The  beach- 
guard  no  doubt  was  buckling  to  his  belt  the 
life-rope  coiled  always  on  the  sands  for  such 
emergencies.  Cries  of  men  and  women  rang 
stifled  over  the  water — exclamations  of  fear 
and  advice  and  excitement,  mingled  in  a  long 
continuous  wail. 

Graham's  head  rose  in  sight,  a  mere  speck 
upon  the  dense  green  of  the  bulging  water. 


Wade,  fetching  nearer  in  wide  strokes,  sud- 
denly felt  himself  twisted  violently  out  of  his 
course,  and  whirled  round  in  a  futile  effort 
with  some  mysterious  current.  He  was  al- 
most near  enough  to  lay  hold  of  Graham 
when  this  new  sensation  explained  lucidly 
the  cause  of  Graham's  danger.  They  were 
both  in  the  claws  of  an  undertow,  which, 
as  Wade  realized  its  touch,  appeared  as  if 
wrenching  him  straight  out  to  the  purring 
distance  of  the  farther  sea. 

Even  in  the  first  consternation  of  this  dis- 
covery he  felt  himself  thrust  hard  against  a 
leaden  body,  and  in  the  same  instant  Gra- 
ham's hands  snatched  at  him  in  a  desperate 
reach  for  life. 

"  For  God's  sake  don't  hold  me  like  this !" 
Wade  expostulated.  "  Let  go.  Trust  me  to 
do  what  I  can.  You're  strangling  me,  man  !" 

But  Graham  was  past  sanity.  He  only 
clutched  with  the  more  frenzy  at  the  thing 
which  seemed  to  keep  him  from  the  raven- 
ous mouth  of  the  snarling  waters. 

Wade,  in  a  kind  of  composed  despair,  sent 
a  look  towards  the  beach.  They  were  put- 
ting out  a  boat,  a  tiny  shell  which  frisked 


in  the  surf,  and  seemed  motionless  in  the 
double  action  of  the  waves.  Men  laid  hard 
at  the  oars.  The  little  craft  took  the  first  big 
wave  as  a  horse  takes  a  hurdle.  It  dropped 
from  the  glassy  height,  and  Wade  saw  it  sink 
into  a  breach  of  the  sea.  Then,  flashing  with 
crystal,  it  bore  up  again  and  outward. 

The  figures  running  and  gesticulating  on 
the  beach  had  a  marvellous  distinctness  to 
Wade's  submerging  eyes.  He  noticed  the 
blue  sky,  flawed  with  scratches  of  white,  the 
zigzag  roof-lines  of  the  great  town,  the  twist- 
ing flags  and  meshes  of  dark  wire.  Every- 
thing oppressed  him  with  a  sort  of  deadly 
clearness,  as  if  a  metal  stamp  should  press  in 
melting  wax. 

He  was  momently  sinking,  drawn  ever  out- 
ward by  the  undercurrent,  and  downward 
by  the  weighty  burden  throttling  him  in  its 
senseless  grasp.  He  looked  once  more  through 
a  blinding  veil  of  foam,  and  saw  the  boat 
dipping  far  to  the  left.  A  phantasm  of  life 
flickered  before  him.  Unsuspected  trivialities 
shook  out  of  their  cells,  and  amazed  him  with 
the  pygmy  thrift  of  memory.  Then  came  a 
sense  of  confusion,  as  if  the  spiritual  and  cor- 


TO 


poral  lost  each  its  boundary  and  ranged  wild, 
and  Wade  felt  the  sea  in  his  eyes,  stroking 
them  down  as  gently  as  ever  any  watcher  by 
the  dying. 


VI 


GRACE  GAYLE  had  flung  herself  in  the  hot 
sand  near  Elizabeth. 

"  What  made  Mr.  Wade  go  away  the  min- 
ute I  came  ?"  she  asked.  "  Had  you  been  say- 
ing something  unkind  to  him,  or  did  I 
simply  queer  a  friendly  talk  by  dropping 
down  on  you  ?" 

She  lay  at  length,  listening  to  Elizabeth's 
word  of  reply. 

"  Well,"  said  Bailey,  presently,  "  I  guess 
I'll  travel,  unless  you're  going  in  before 
long  ?" 

Grace  lifted  herself  on  an  elbow  and  com- 
manded him  to  wait  a  minute.  She  was  gaz- 
ing thoughtfully  out  upon  the  waste  of  water, 
and  turning  a  little  hollow  in  the  sand  with 
one  slim  foot. 

"  I  sha'n't  stay  in  long  to-day,"  she  said. 
"  It  looks  pretty  heavy,  that  surf.  How  hard 
that  man  away  out  there  is  swimming !  It 


73 


must  be  a  bet."  She  stared  with  keener 
interest,  and  as  the  others  followed  her  gaze 
she  rose  upon  her  knees  for  a  better  range. 

A  sudden  commotion  had  arisen  in  the 
throng  under  the  pavilion.  A  man's  voice 
shouted  excitedly,  and  a  woman's  scream 
shrilled  out. . 

"  An  accident,"  decided  Bailey.  "  Some 
one's  got  beyond  his  depth."  He  scrutinized 
the  distance,  and  the  remote  figure  swimming 
vigorously  across  the  reach  of  sea.  Elizabeth 
had  risen  also,  and  the  three  stood  staring 
out. 

"  He  won't  reach  him  !"  cried  a  young  fel- 
low hard  by ;  "  though  he's  a  fine  stroke — 
Wade  is." 

"  Wade !"  cried  Gracie,  wheeling — "  Wade ! 
Is  that—" 

"  Selby  Wade,  the  newspaper — why,  he 
stops  at  your  hotel,  Miss  Gayle.  The  fellow 
that's  sinking  stops  there  too.  I  don't  know 
his  name.  Big  man — with  a  shaved  face.  I've 
noticed  him  rolling  some  old  man  in  a  chair." 

Elizabeth  Kuley  had  uttered  a  little  gasp- 
ing kind  of  cry.  She  swayed  forward,  and 
without  seeming  to  see  Bailey,  caught  at  his 


73 


arm  to  stay  herself.  Bailey  himself  was  un- 
aware of  everything  except  that  far-off  strug- 
gle, and  the  action  of  the  beach-guards. 

"  They've  got  the  boat  out !"  he  cried,  as 
the  pointed  thing  spun  back  and  forth  in  the 
counter -currents  like  a  red  shuttle.  Grace 
had  hidden  her  face  against  one  of  the  heavy 
posts  supporting  the  pavilion. 

"  O  Blessed  Mary  !"  she  kept  muttering 
with  dry  lips.  "  O  Holy  Mother,  save  him 
— save  them,  1  mean  !  Oh,  be  merciful !  O 
Lord,  help  him  !  help  him  !  '  I  make  promise 
of  amendment' — oh,  what's  the  rest  of  it? — 
'  I  make  promise  of  amendment' — ah,  yes  ! — 
'  amendment,  moved  to  great  love  and  tender 
pity  at  sight  of  TLiy  five  precious  wounds.'  " 

Her  voice  was  lost  in  the  outcries  about 
her.  Men  called  loudly  to  each  other  and 
to  the  oarsmen.  Women  sobbed  and  covered 
their  eyes. 

"  He's  got  hold  of  him  !"  rang  out,  as  the 
struggling  swimmer  seemed  to  snatch  at  the 
shoulder  of  the  drowning  man.  Then  an  ap- 
palled murmur  arose. 

"  It's  an  underpull !" 

"  They're  going  out !" 


74 

"  The  boat !  The  boat !  She  won't  make 
it." 

"  Faster,  you  fellows  ! — They're  sinking  !" 

The  indefinite  atom  of  humanity  warring 
out  there  with  the  piled -up  power  of  the 
ocean  seemed  indeed  to  give  over  the  strug- 
gle. An  oily  sweep  of  sea  poured  round 
the  spot  where  the  men's  heads  had  fitfully 
lifted.  There  was  an  instant's  silent  waiting 
for  the  reappearance  of  those  dark  flecks  in 
the  farther  sea.  Then  a  cry  rang  wildly  up — 
"  Lost !  Lost !" 

In  this  moment  the  hot  grasp  on  Bailey's 
bare  arm  relaxed  so  suddenly  as  to  recall  him 
to  a  sense  of  the  woman  beside  him.  She 
was  wheeling  dizzily,  with  the  motion  of  one 
about  to  fall,  but  still  struggling  with  a  wan- 
ing consciousness.  Her  eyes  were  half  shut ; 
but  the  wonted  fixity  of  her  features  was 
broken  into  an  expression  of  such  impas- 
sioned horror  that,  as  Bailey,  thrusting  out  a 
hand  to  steady  the  circling  figure,  observed 
the  strange  difference  of  her  anguish-stricken 
face,  his  own  eyes  started  wide. 

"  Ah !"  he  said,  "  where  have  your  wits 
been,  Bailey  ?  You  were  not  mistaken." 


VII 


IF  there  was  anything  at  all  coherent  in 
Wade's  mind,  as  he  felt  the  sea  pulling  over 
him,  it  was  a  fierce  sort  of  resentment  that  the 
little  tossing  boat  should  be  so  futilely  near. 
A  fraction  of  a  moment  meant  life  to  him 
now — the  merest  fraction  of  a  moment.  And 
all  the  while  the  boat  hovered  round  him  like 
a  hawk,  and  the  weight  on  his  shoulders 
dragged  more  and  more  inertly.  That  weight ! 
— but  for  that  weight  of  clinging,  half-con- 
scious manhood —  A  sudden  fierce  impulse, 
not  in  the  least  humane,  but  born  of  the  des- 
peration of  stifling  breath,  darted  through 
AVade's  gasping  senses.  He  gathered  him- 
self and  wrenched  free  one  arm,  and  with  it 
struck  blindly  out  and  smote  Graham  be- 
tween the  shut  eyes. 

Instantly  the  man's  grasp  loosened.  But 
with  the  vivifying  sense  of  buoyancy  which 
this  relaxation  gave  to  Wade  rose  an  instinct 


76 


of  humanity  only  a  degree  less  cogent  than 
had  been  the  feeling  which  prompted  the 
blow.  He  laid  lightly  hold  of  the  other's 
shoulder,  and  held  him  somehow  or  other 
afloat  for  the  next  second,  till  the  hover- 
ing little  craft  fetched  near  enough  for 
aid. 

Even  then  it  was  hard  enough  to  get  Gra- 
ham aboard.  And  after  this  was  accom- 
plished it  seemed  as  if,  after  all,  help  had 
come  too  late ;  for  the  young  preacher  lay 
like  a  log  in  the  boat,  only  gasping  once  or 
twice  as  they  turned  him.  Before  they  made 
the  shore,  however,  he  began  to  fetch  gur- 
gling breaths,  and  Wade,  observing  him,  de- 
cided that  all  would  presently  be  well  with 
Miss  Ruley's  lover. 

For  the  first  time  his  mind  recurred  keenly 
to  Elizabeth.  Sitting  on  the  beach  she  had, 
of  course,  seen  the  whole  matter  of  Graham's 
misadventure,  and  was,  no  doubt,  still  una- 
ware that  the  rescuers  had  been  in  time  to 
save  him.  Wade  experienced  a  strong  senti- 
ment of  gratitude  at  the  sickening  heave  of 
Graham's  broad  chest.  The  young  man  was 
going  to  be  deadly  ill,  without  doubt,  but  at 


77 


least  he,  Wade,  would  not  have  to  break  to 
Elizabeth  the  news  of  her  lover's  death. 

When  the  boat  nosed  the  sands  and  people 
pressed  about  it  with  reaching  hands  and  hot 
words  of  enthusiastic  congratulation,  Wade 
lapsed  into  rather  a  surly  state,  put  about  by 
the  free  expressions  of  approval  lavished  on 
what  the  beach  multitudes  elected  to  term 
his  heroic  deed.  Waiving  all  this  with  dis- 
gusted embarrassment,  the  young  man  was 
nevertheless  obliged  to  smile  at  the  tearful 
incoherence  with  which  Gracie  Gayle  rushed 
upon  him  and  clasped  his  hands. 

"  And  Graham  ?"  she  panted,  as  a  sort  of 
after-thought;  "is  he  alive?" 

"  I  should  say  so  !  He'll  be  all  right  pres- 
ently. Does  Miss  Ruley  know  " —  He  paused, 
having  just  caught  sight  of  her  in  a  momen- 
tary breach  of  the  crowd,  leaning  upon  Bai- 
ley's arm  and  looking  whiter  than  the  foam 
at  her  feet.  He  hurried  towards  her. 

"  lie's  all  right,"  he  burst  out,  reassuringly 
— "  Graham.  He's  a  little  sickish  just  now, 
but"--  Again  he  broke  off.  Elizabeth  Ruley, 
lifting  her  face  in  a  sudden,  moved  kind  of 
way,  looked  him  mutely  in  the  eyes. 


He  had  seen  it  variously  sad,  musing,  anx- 
ious, and  apprehensive — that  still,  chill  glance 
beneath  her  straight  brows ;  but  he  had 
never  dreamed  that  it  or  any  other  gaze  could 
quicken  his  very  soul  with  such  a  sense  as 
burned  there  now,  a  sense  making  his  own 
eyes  lift  in  a  spasm  of  feeling  which  shut  his 
lips  hard  upon  a  sharp,  short,  rapturous  breath. 

A  number  of  the  hotel  people  closed  about 
her.  Without  a  word  Wade  gave  way  to 
them.  There  was  no  need  to  say  anything 
whatever.  The  profound  consciousness  which 
had  leaped  upon  him  in  that  single  instant 
was  not  a  thing  to  break  easily  at  the  lips. 

With  an  illusory  sense  upon  him,  he  went 
up  to  the  bath-houses,  and,  still  feeling  like 
one  meshed  in  the  glittering  woof  of  a  deli- 
cious dream,  on  to  the  Dorsheimer  Arms. 
How  had  he  been  able,  during  these  past 
weeks,  to  delude  himself  into  believing  he 
should  suffer  little  in  resigning  this  woman 
to  a  life  in  which  he  had  no  part  ?  Had  it 
been  he,  indeed,  who  had  calmly  figured  her 
as  shining  with  serene  sweetness  in  the  home 
and  parish  of  the  Rev.  Frederic  Clinton  Gra- 
ham ?  Wade  laughed  out  in  scorn  of  the  no- 


79 


tion.  lie  set  his  lips  and  narrowed  liis  eyes 
even  to  think  of  such  a  thing. 

"  Why,"  he  murmured,  amazedly,  "  I  love 
her  more  than  life  itself.  I  would  die  for  her." 
These  assurances  burst  out  with  strength,  if 
lacking  absolute  originality  of  phrase.  In  a 
moment  he  himself  laughed  to  remember  that 
he  had  heard  other  men  make  such  statements, 
and  had  been  faintly  amused  at  the  prodigal- 
ity of  love's  vows  and  the  curious  sameness 
of  its  figures  of  speech. 

Sitting  on  the  edge  of  his  bed,  he  covered 
his  eyes  and  drifted  into  a  beatific  world,  all 
a  riot  of  blue  skies  and  scattered  roses  and 
clasping  cupids  and  pastoral  pipes.  Eliza- 
beth glided  through  the  ferny  greenness — 
Elizabeth,  in  floating  white,  with  a  ribbon 
of  girlish  blue  in  the  shadowy  depths  of  her 
hair  —  Elizabeth,  with  handfuls  of  honey- 
suckles, no  longer  still  and  loath,  but  glad  and 
smiling,  warm  and  heartening  as  the  flowers 
she  bore.  And  then  presently  these  Arca- 
dian alleys  lapsed  to  ways  not  less  sweet, 
though  more  familiar.  A  walled-up  city  street 
stretched  out  before  him,  narrow  and  mo- 
notonous, with  its  tall  dwellings  and  meagre 


80 


ribbon  of  sky.  Was  this  one  of  the  apart- 
ments he  had  so  hated — this  reach  of  rooms, 
tunnelled  with  a  long  dark  hall,  with  sunshine 
only  in  snatches,  and  with  strange  cubby -holes 
crouching  about  shafts  which  mouthed  up  a 
dim,  infernal  light  ?  It  seemed  to  have  incon- 
sequent features  in  common  with  his  old  de- 
testation ;  but  it  could  not  be  the  same,  for 
this  range  of  rooms  radiated  delight — being, 
indeed,  pervaded  with  a  presence  which,  to 
Wade's  mind,  would  have  shed  a  gentle  home- 
rapture  upon  a  section  of  the  Catacombs. 

He  could  hear  the  ripple  of  Elizabeth's 
gown,  the  soft  fall  of  her  foot  as  she  moved 
through  those  pictured  spaces.  Elizabeth ! — 
he  had  never  known  before  that  it  was  his 
favorite  name.  He  repeated  it  to  himself  till 
it  lost  meaning  and  startled  him  with  its 
strangeness.  He  wished  to  see  her  at  once, 
yet  dreaded  to  see  her,  as  inevitably  he  must, 
among  others. 

At  this  juncture  there  was  a  rap  at  his  door, 
and  when  he  opened  it  he  saw  Mr.  Ruley 
standing  in  the  hall. 

"  Frederic  wants  to  see  you,"  said  the  old 
man,  tremulous  with  emotion.  "  He  is  ad- 


81 


vised  by  the  doctor  to  lie  by  for  the  day,  being 
er — somewhat — " 

"  Salt-water  has  that  effect  generally.  He'll 
brace  up  after  a  bit." 

"  I  trust  so  !  I  trust  so  !  snatched  thus  by 
the  unspeakable  goodness  of  God  from  the 
fate  of  them  that  go  down  in  ships.  Ah,  my 
young  friend,  blessed  indeed  are  those  that 
are  ordained  to  be  instruments  of  His  grace. 
I  have  come  to  fetch  you  to  the  bedside  of 
this  dear  soul  that  he  may,  in  such  sort  as  he 
is  directed,  make  acknowledgment  to  you 
for  your  timely  aid."  He  fondly  laid  hold 
of  Wade's  arm. 

"  He'll  feel  more  like  falling  on  my  neck 
when  his  stomach  settles !"  laughed  Wade. 
"I'll  wait  till  then."  But  Mr.  Ruley  drew 
him  down  the  corridor  with  that  singularly 
forceful  strength  which  occasionally  showed 
itself  in  his  lank-,  leaning  form. 
•  Graham  turned  a  qualmish  face  upon  them. 

"  I  can't  say  a  word,"  he  declared.  "  I've 
a  lot  of  pretty  speeches  laid  up  for  emer- 
gencies, but  none  for- one  like 'this.  I  never 
foresaw  having  my  life  saved.  I  guess  you 
know  how  I  feel !" 


82 


"  Yes.  I  saw  you  were  swallowing  too 
much  brine,"  said  Wade.  He  added,  "Sor- 
ry I  had  to  punch  your  head  !"  The  two 
men  smiled  over  their  clasped  hands. 

"  Ah !"  cried  Mr.  Ruley,  gazing  with  dis- 
tended rheumy  eyes  upon  this  fraternal  pict- 
ure, "  Frederic  was  saved  to  great  works,  be- 
ing specially  favored  in  his  holy  calling,  and 
specially  gifted  with  rare  persuasive  qualities." 

"  Oh  !"  murmured  Graham,  deprecatingly. 

"  I  speak  the  fact,"  protested  the  other. 
"I  myself  have  been  very  zealous  for  the 
Lord  of  Hosts.  I  cried  aloud,  and  showed 
my  people  their  transgressions.  I  depicted 
to  them  hell  enlarging  herself  and  opening 
her  mouth  without  measure.  Sabbath  after 
Sabbath  I  told  them  that  their  glory,  their 
pomp,  and  their  multitude  should  descend 
therein.  But  they  were  puffed  up  and  given 
to  their  idols.  They  would  not  hear.  They 
had  no  pleasure  in  the  words  of  the  servant 
of  the  Most  High." 

Wade  and  Graham  exchanged  a  glance 
which  expressed  no  surprise  that  Mr.  Ruley's 
congregation  had  failed  to  accept  his  views 
with  joyous  alacrity. 


83 


"  I  strove  mightily  with  a  perverse  and 
stiff-necked  generation.  I  told  them  of  their 
loathsome  iniquity,  of  their  guile,  their  vanity, 
their  shame,  their  utterly  lost  condition.  They 
heard  me,"  cried  Mr.  Ruley,  in  a  bitterly  so- 
norous voice,  "  with  the  apathy  of  them  that 
are  dead  according  to  the  law.  Yet  I  saw 
those  stubborn  hearts  softened.  Another  than 
I  spoke  to  them,  and,  behold,  the  flint  was 
melted.  To  Him  be  the  honor  who  hast  or- 
dained this  miracle  of  victorious  young  priest- 
hood— Frederic,  my  son  in  the  faith  !"  His 
quavering  accents  broke  and  the  fierceness  left 
his  beaked  face. 

Graham  looked  at  Wade  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"  I  reap  where  you  sowed,"  he  said,  con- 
siderately. A  flash  leaped  to  the  old  man's 
deep  eyes. 

"  You  speak  with  the  voice  of  the  comfort- 
er," he  sighed,  shaking  his  rough  white  hair, 
but  visibly  pleased. 

During  the  entire  day  "Wade  saw  nothing 
of  Elizabeth.  At  supper,  however,  his  heart 
gave  an  unaccustomed  twitch  as  he  observed 
her  dark  head  in  a  distant  end  of  the  dining- 


84 


room.  He  hung  about  the  office  till  she  came 
out,  carrying  her  father's  shawl,  and  prepared 
to  fix  him  comfortably  on  the  porch. 

Her  eyes  avoided  Wade,  but  as  she  passed 
him  a  little  breath  of  pink  fluctuated  in  her 
cheek,  whereat  the  young  man  took  exceed- 
ing heart,  being  happily  unaware  that  his 
tender  observance  of  Miss  Ruley  was  winning 
amused  smiles  from  the  people  about. 

Gracie  Gayle  brushed  up  to  him. 

"  It's  all  right,  then  ?  Will  papa  live  with 
you  ?  poor  old  dear  !  He's  a  back  number, 
but  he  means  well.  Only  this  wicked  world's 
no  place  for  men  like  him.  Folks  never 
thank  you  for  telling  them  they've  got  soot 
on  their  noses.  They'd  rather  be  jollied 
up  a  little,  and  made  to  think  their  faces 
are  pretty  clean.  Hum  ? — the  Rev.  Graham, 
now.  I'm  willing  to  put  up  my  European 
successes  that  he'll  be  right  in  it  for  luck ! 
He'll  have  a  big  city  pulpit  and  his  sermons 
printed  in  the  newspapers.  You  mark  my 
words.  He's  up  to  date ;  and  I'm  proud  of 
you,  Wade — awful  proud  of  you  for  beating 
his  time,  for  I  saw  the  way  you  and  Eliza- 
beth acted  just  now  when  she  passed,  and  I 


was  right  on.  I  knew  it  was  all  right."  She 
waved  her  hand  back  at  him  as  she  fluttered 
up-stairs,  all  a  maze  of  rosy  muslin,  with  a 
tinkling  of  silver  bangles  on  her  wrists. 

Wade  resolutely  approached  his  friends  in 
the  porch  corner. 

"  Don't  let  me  interfere  with  your  usual 
walk,"  said  Mr.  Ruley.  "  Go  while  it  is  yet 
light,  Elizabeth — you  and  our  good  friend. 
I  shall  presently  seek  Frederic's  side.  He 
wishes  to  consult  me  upon  a  question  which 
my  acquaintance  with  the  early  fathers  justi- 
fies me  in  discussing."  Blessing  him  pro- 
foundly, Wade  moved  his  chair  back  and 
looked  questioningly  at  Elizabeth. 

She  rose  with  an  air  of  reluctance,  and  they 
went  down  the  steps  together  and  into  the 
thronged  street,  which  queerly  enough  seemed 
to  Wade  a  cosmic  wilderness  whose  sweet 
solitude  was  peopled  only  by  himself  and  the 
girl  at  his  side. 

As  he  talked  of  common  things  he  took 
her  silence  comfortably  to  heart.  No  doubt 
she  felt  this  singular  atmosphere,  which  had 
so  suddenly  ensphered  them  in  a  new  world. 
That  was  it.  She  was  moved  by  the  strange- 


86 


ness  of  it  all,  and  felt,  as  indeed  he  himself 
felt,  a  little  stupefied,  a  little  dazed  by  the 
greatness  of  the  difference.  So  Wade  de- 
cided as  they  came  to  the  ocean  side. 

Dim,  phantom  sails  reached  into  the  fading 
sky.  One  schooner  lay  at  anchor  off  the  bar. 
A  rich  brownish  chrome  streaked  its  flat  fore- 
sail, and  upon  the  mingling  tones  of  sky  and 
sea  its  rigging  trailed  a  delicate  filigree  of 
black.  Through  the  zigzag  spaces  of  a  dis- 
tant pavilion  shone,  as  through  a  dark  trellis, 
the  shattered  amber  of  the  west.  Against  it 
one  white  arc-lamp  hung  like  a  jewel.  Other 
lights  spun  out  from  the  half-gloom  of  the 
town.  The  crowd  on  the  walk  thickened.  It 
grew,  with  every  instant,  more  and  still  more 
noisy.  Sound  and  movement  ingulfed  the 
comparative  quietude,  and  there  was  nothing 
presently  to  tell  of  its  briefly  tranquil  charm 
except  the  motionless  vessel  lying  out  there 
at  sea  and  visibly  melting  into  the  dark  bos- 
om of  the  night.  A  low  tide  whined  on  the 
sands.  Off  to  the  left  the  little  lake,  thrust- 
ing out  in  the  sunset  glow  from  its  wooded 
belt,  looked  like  a  dagger  of  gold  in  a  dark 
girdle. 


87 


"  Let  us  walk  round  that  way/'  suggested 
Wade.  They  turned  towards  the  sliver  of 
burnished  water,  the  color  of  which,  as  they 
neared  it,  waned  to  a  mere  dull  russet.  About 
the  rim  were  tall  lamps,  which  plunged  blunt, 
leaden  shafts  of  light  into  the  still  depths. 
A  little  bridge  rose  over  the  expanse,  and  as 
they  mounted  its  soft  curve  a  boat  shot  be- 
low them  and  the  voices  of  the  rowers  rang 
upward. 

Then  a  soft  stillness  settled  down.  A  gray 
density  of  shadow  crept  stealthily  from  a 
tiny  wooded  island  just  beyond  the  bridge, 
and  some  bird  in  the  dark  leafage  chirped  a 
long,  lonely  note. 

Elizabeth,  leaning  on  the  slight  rail,  herself 
half  folded  in  shadow,  stood  watching  the 
lucid  trail  of  the  vanishing  boat.  Wade, 
filled  with  the  simple  happiness  of  her  pres- 
ence, set  his  elbow  on  the  balustrade  and  let 
the  sweetness  of  the  moment  encompass  him. 
All  the  fulness  of  complete  knowledge  might 
never  be  so  exquisite  a  thing  as  this  "  prodi- 
gal inward  joy,"  as  yet  unaverred  except  by 
the  forces  of  life  which  speak  without  lan- 
guage. 


And  as  he  leaned  there,  rapt  in  the  en- 
chantment which  silence  and  assurance  com- 
bined to  work  upon  him,  another  skiff 
flashed  into  sight,  daubing  the  water  with 
thin  vermilion  from  the  red  light  it  bore.  A 
girl's  voice,  bold  and  clear,  lilted  up  the  bars 
of  a  song  made  popular  by  some  concert-hall 
favorite — a  song  none  too  reticent  of  illusion, 
with  a  reckless  swing  of  rhythm  and  a  de- 
mure suggestiveness  of  phrase. 

Darting  shafts  of  scarlet  about  it,  the  boat 
struck  under  the  bridge.  In  emerging  it  dis- 
closed a  boyish  young  fellow  at  the  oars,  and 
opposite  him,  in  a  cloud  of  airy  pink,  the 
small  singer.  Gracie's  gold  slippers  cast  off 
a  gay  gleam,  as  if  she  were  shod  with  sun- 
shine. Her  bangles  flashed  and  clashed  as 
she  idly  shredded  up  the  bunch  of  roses  in 
her  lap  and  flung  the  petals  in  her  com- 
panion's face.  He,  bending  his  blonde  head, 
laughed  at  the  soft  pelting.  Then,  quickly 
enough,  he  drew  both  oars  into  one  hand, 
and,  reaching  forward,  caught  the  girl's  teas- 
ing fingers. 

She  paused  in  her  song  and  laughed.  Em- 
boldened, he  lifted  the  little  hand.  His  lips 


IIIEN    A    SOFT    STILLNESS    SETTLK1)    DOWN  " 


89 


had  not  touched  it,  however,  when  she 
snatched  it  away. 

"  Mind  your  oars,"  she  advised  him,  taking 
up  the  rollicking  measure  again  and  casting 
a  wind  of  pink  flowers  over  the  skiff-side. 

AVade  straightened  himself  with  a  con- 
sciousness of  strong  distaste.  His  conviction 
of  Gracie's  ability  to  take  care  of  herself 
was,  if  anything,  deepened  by  this  episode. 
But  he  had  a  moral  qualm  at  the  girl's  suf- 
ficiency, because  it  bore  so  emphatic  a  hint 
of  much  experience.  From  the  swift  impres- 
sion of  her  mirthful  mockery,  her  acute 
glance,  her  cheek,  altogether  unabashed  at 
man's  approving,  and  her  whole  piquant, 
theatric  personality,  Wade's  vision  returned 
to  the  figure  beside  him,  poised  with  a  little 
air  of  meditation  and  with  gentle  gaze  bent 
on  the  shaken  redness  of  the  lake. 

"  Elizabeth !"  he  said,  suddenly  put  to 
speech,  "  oh,  what  a  rapture  it  is  just  to 
stand  here  with  you !  Dearest  love,  tell  me 
that  I  don't  misunderstand  your  silence !  I 
couldn't  care  like  this,  could  1,  for  a  woman 
who  did  not  love  me  a  little  ?"  Something 
like  a  shiverinir  coldness  went  over  him.  She 


90 


Lad  distinctly  shrunk  away  from  him,  and 
even  in  the  shadows  it  seemed  as  if  her  face 
assumed  an  austere  fixity. 

"  I  beg  of  you,"  she  stammered,  "  do  not 
— do  not — " 

"  But,  Elizabeth  !"  besought  Wade,  shaken 
with  misgivings,  "  listen  ! — oh,  be  generous 
with  me!  no  one  will  ever  love  you  as  I  do. 
It's  my  life  you  have  in  your  hands."  lie 
was  beyond  that  half  -  humorous  criticism 
which  he  commonly  brought  to  bear  on  him- 
self no  less  than  on  others.  If  what  he  said 
had  been  often  said  in  precisely  the  tone  in 
which  he  now  poured  it  hotly  forth,  he  did 
not  think  or  care.  "  I  know  how  unworthy 
I  am,  dearest.  But  you  can  make  me  any- 
thing you  will  —  anything.  Oh,  Elizabeth  ! 
just  now  when  I  saw  that  poor  little  girl 
in  her  stagey  finery,  with  her  safe  reckless- 
ness and  pertness  and  sharp  wisdom,  I  thanked 
God  that  my  fate  was,  in  loving  you,  my  pure 
little  saint,  to  love  upward  to  the  highest 
reach  of  my  ideals.  Oh,  you  can't  know  what 
it  is  to  me,  that  sweet  cloistral  air  of  yours, 
that  gentle  reserve !  You  have  been  shut 
away  from  the  world  and  its  knowledges,  and 


91 


I  ain  more  glad  than  I  can  say,  my  love,  my 
wife — " 

"  I  have  asked  you  not  to  say  any  more," 
Elizabeth  broke  in,  speaking  with  haste,  al- 
most with  sharpness.  • 

"  But—" 

"  No  more.  It  is  impossible,  impossible  !" 
As  she  said  this,  however,  her  voice  broke 
and  her  head  fell  on  her  breast. 

"  Oh,"  she  murmured,  "  how  impossible  I 
pray  you  may  never  know  !  For  I  care — yes, 
I  want  you  to  know  that  I  care — greatly  for 
your — regard  and — respect." 


VIII 

IN  dwelling  upon  Elizabeth's  words  and 
manner,  Wade  felt  like  one  in  the  thick  of  a 
cloud,  which,  without  assuming  shape  itself, 
confuses  and  thwarts  the  view.  Through  it, 
however,  like  a  storm-blurred  star,  the  radi- 
ance of  her  own  confession  of  regard  shone 
bright. 

He  had  besought  some  explanation  of  her 
meaning,  but  she  had  said  only  that  if  he 
cared  for  her  at  all  he  would  show  it  best  by 
asking  nothing  ;  that  if  he  was  generous  he 
would  take  her  attitude  as  final  and  neces- 
sary. And  while  he  was  yet  asking  her  to 
show  a  little  confidence  in  him,  she  had 
passed  hurriedly  up  the  wide  steps  of  the  ho-* 
tel  and  crossed  the  office  and  turned  the  bend 
of  the  stairs.  Since  which  time  he  had  seen 
her  no  more,  though  a  day  had  dragged  by. 

He  wandered  round  the  place,  tormented 
by  his  own  restlessness  as  well  as  by  the 


93 


sounds  and  sights  which  the  outer  world 
forced  on  his  irritated  sensibilities.  It  was 
as  if  these  objective  annoyances  were  gro- 
tesquely magnified  by  the  lens  of  pain  through 
which  he  saw  them.  Everything  was  an 
offence,  and  affected  him  as  the  tiniest  press- 
ure affects  a  bruise. 

Graham,  striding  down  the  long  dining- 
room,  was  a  maddening  sight  in  his  breezy 
light-heartedness.  The  fair  locks  of  a  young 
widow  at  his  own  table,  whose  grief  expressed 
itself  in  a  mixture  of  heavy  crape  and  nu- 
merous diamonds,  impressed  him  with  a  hid- 
eous falsity  of  hue.  A  child  wailed  out,  and 
was  borne  away  by  some  one  who  rose  and 
pushed  a  chair  about  on  the  polished  floor. 
In  a  spasm  of  revolt  Wade  thrust  back  from 
the  table  and  left  it  all  behind — that  clamor- 
ous apartment  filled  with  a  long  perspective  of 
ceaselessly  gleaming  knives  and  forks.  •  Yet 
even  in  these  hours  of  utter  dissatisfaction 
it  was  almost  amusing  to  him  to  reflect  that 
this  babel  of  noise  and  movement  repre- 
sented to  so  many  people  an  ideal  state  of 
enjoyment. 

"  Elizabeth,"  said  Mr.  Ruley,  after  supper, 


"  will  not  join  us  this  evening.  She  is  suffer- 
ing with  what  seems  to  be  a  slight  headache. 
Truly  affliction  is  the  ordinary  feature  of 
mortal  destiny." 

After  a  time  Graham  and  Wade  strolled 
off  together,  taking  their  way  through  some 
interior  streets  of  the  town,  upon  the  com- 
parative darkness  of  which  the  lights  of  cot- 
tages broke  in  a  peaceful,  domestic  fashion 
wholly  different  from  the  way  of  the  beach 
precincts,  all  glaring  with  electricity. 

Through  open  doors  they  caught  sight 
of  family  gatherings,  of  children  playing,  of 
young  folk  talking,  of  an  old  woman  bend- 
ing soberly  over  a  thick  book.  Graham, 
looking  up  at  the  stars,  gave  a  sigh. 

"  They're  the  things  that  really  count,  after 
all,"  he  asserted.  "  If  a  man  misses  it — love, 
you  know,  and  home  ties — nothing  else  ever 
perfectly  makes  it  up  to  him.  We  are  told 
with  high-handed  scorn  that  love  isn't  much 
of  a  power,  anyway ;  that  it  means  little  in 
comparison  with  life's  other  forces.  But 
I  believe  it's  a  pretty  big  thing,  myself. 
There's  a  time  in  a  fellow's  career  when  it 
counts  for  a  devilish  deal.  It's  a  power." 


'GRAHAM    WAS    A    MADDKNIXG    SIGHT    IN    HIS    BREEZY 
LIGHT-HEARTKDNESS  " 


95 


Wade  agreed  with  this  view,  and  Graham 
pushed  on  :  "  I've  an  idea  that  there's  only 
one  pair  of  hands  in  the  world  that  can  kindle 
the  flame  on  a  man's  hearth.  And  if  he 
makes  a  mistake  and  gets  the  wrong  pair, 
he'll  have  a  sickly  warmth  in  his  inglenook." 

Wade  lifted  his  brows,  surmising  what  the 
specialized  nature  of  this  figure  portended. 

u  Yes,"  pursued  Graham,  "  a  man,  in  my 
mind,  does  well  to  subordinate  other  things 
to  love.  He'd  better  marry  the  woman  who 
pleases  him  even  if  *he  has  to  sacrifice  some- 
thing in  the  way  of  ambition  and  that  kind 
of  thing." 

"  If  she  will  have  him,"  added  Wade. 

"  No  trouble  about  that.  Women  marry 
the  men  who  ask  them."  He  laughed,  and 
laid  a  confidential  hand  on  Wade's  arm. 

"  Of  course  you've  seen  what's  in  the  wind  ? 
I'm  pretty  hard  hit.  That  little  witch  has 
turned  my  head  with  her  shy,  stately  ways. 
And  a  clergyman  ought  to  marry.  He  owes 
it  to  his  people.  Elizabeth  is  as  retiring  as 
the  traditional  wood-violet,  but  in  a  different 
atmosphere — for  I  don't  propose  to  stay  for- 
ever in  Indiana — I  think  she'll  expand  to  the 


96 


social  necessities  of  her  position  as  my  wife. 
I  admired  her  from  the  first.  There's  some- 
thing unaccountable  about  her  that  catches  a 
fellow's  imagination.  But  I  went  slow.  It's 
a  big  decision  for  a  man.  And  it  wasn't  an 
advantageous  alliance  for  me — looking  at  it 
in  cold  blood.  But  the  more  I  see  of  her 
the  harder  I'm  nailed.  I've  made  up  my- 
mind  to  settle  everything  before  I  leave  here 
—  I've  got  to  go  soon  now.  My  time's 
up." 

He  began  to  whistle  "  Annie  Laurie "  be- 
tween his  teeth.  They  had  returned  to  the 
threshold  of  the  Dorsheimer  Arms,  and,  see- 
ing Grace  Gayle  sitting  by  herself  in  the 
porchway,  Wade  stopped  for  a  moment. 

"I've  been  looking  for  you,"  she  said. 
"  Something's  out  of  gear.  Your  face  gives 
it  away.  And  when  I  rapped  at  Elizabeth's 
door  just  now  to  see  how  her  headache  was, 
I  noticed  that  her  eyes  were  swelled  up.  She's 
been  crying.  Yes,  crying,"  she  repeated  im- 
pressively, as  Wade  started.  "  It  broke  me 
all  up  to  see  how  bad  she  looked.  I  know 
something's  up.  You'd  better  let  me  in  on 
the  ground -floor,  Wade.  Neither  you  nor 


her  has  any  better  friend  than  me.  I'd  do  a 
good  deal  for  you." 

"  Thanks,  Titania,"  muttered  Wade,  gloom- 
ily. "  Your  barley  -  sugar  wand  can't  do 
anything  for  me  just  now."  He  paused  with 
aweary  air  and  added:  "That  poor  young 
fellow  over  there  at  the  cooler — hadn't  you 
better  look  after  him  a  little  ?  He  seems 
desperate — he's  drinking  altogether  too  much 
iced  water.  Isn't  he  the  chap  who  was  row- 
ing you  last  night? — his  joy  was  brief." 

"  I'm  not  worrying  about  him,"  snapped 
Gracie,  pettishly.  "  Indifference  is  good  for 
a  man." 

'"They  fish  with  all  nets 
In  the  school  of  coquettes,' " 

Wade  quoted.  "  The  wing  of  recompense 
will  darken  your  unfeeling  brow  some  day, 
my  lady.  You  will  then  understand " — 
He  paused,  smiling,  for  Grace  had  flounced 
angrily  away. 

Presently  after  this,  Bailey,  searching 
round  the  thronged  piazza  for  her,  came  upon 
her  in  an  isolated  corner. 

"  By  yourself  ?"  asked  Bailey,  pleasantly 


surprised  at  the  absence  of  Grace's  usual 
court.  "  I'm  in  luck.  I  wanted  a  word 
with  you.  I'm  going  up  to  town  to-morrow. 
And  I  thought  I'd  get  your  final — " 

"  Oh,  bother !"  exclaimed  Grace.  "  I'm  in 
no  mood  for  talking  business.  But  I  may 
as  well  tell  you,  once  for  all,  that  I've  about 
decided  to  stay  with  Vaughn.  He  did  the 
square  thing  by  me  last  season.  He'll  feat- 
ure me,  and  all  that.  I'd  of  liked  the  best 
kind  to  join  you,"  explained  the  girl  more 
kindly.  "  I  know  you're  a  hustler ;  but  mom 
don't  like  to  travel,  and  I'm  fond  of  the  city. 
You'll  get  some  one  quite  as  good  as  I  am." 

"There's  Daisy  Higby,"  reflected  Bailey. 
"  She's  got  a  new  dance  that  they  say  will 
catch  on  immensely."  Grace  started. 

"She's  good  style,"  she  admitted,  gener- 
ously ;  "  not  very  original,  but  rather  grace- 
ful, and  all  that." 

"  She  hasn't  your  go ;  but  she's  popular. 
I'd  set  my  heart  on  having  you,  Gracie ;  but 
if  I  can't  make  it  I'll  have  to  do  the  next  best. 
We're  old  friends.  I  remember  you  when 
you  were  a  slip  of  a  thing  in  the  chorus  of — " 

"  Don't  remind  me  of  it !"  gasped  Gracie. 


99 


"  Miserable  little  thing  I  was !  The  folks 
that  saw  me  dancing  in  pink  tulle  didn't 
dream  what  a  ragged  frock  I  changed  it  for 
after  the  curtain.  I  was  saving  every  cent 
to  pay  for  dancing-lessons.  I  might  have 
been  struggling  to  this  day  but  for  Wade's 
write-up.  I'll  never  forget  what  I  owe  him — 
though  he  treats  me  with  scorn  !"  she  add- 
ed, in  a  burst  of  resentment. 

"  Scorn  !  why — " 

"  Oh,  well,  maybe  not  just  scorn ;  but 
when  I  try  to  help  him — he's  in  a  kind  of  a 
hole  at  present — he  simply  laughs  at  me,  and 
politely  advises  me  to  mind  my  own  affairs. 
It's  rough  ;  that's  what." 

"  Is  Wade  in  a  hole  ?  He  seemed  in  high 
feather  yesterday  afternoon." 

"  I  can't  explain,"  said  Miss  Gayle,  with 
dignity.  "  He  wouldn't  like  to  have  his  af- 
fairs discussed.  But  it's  a  love — " 

«  Ah !" 

"  A  love-affair,"  frowned  Gracie.  "  You've 
noticed  him  and  Miss  Ruley,  I  suppose  ?  I 
thought  everything  was  settled ;  but  some- 
thing's gone  wrong.  I'd  give  a  good  deal  to 
find  out  just  what." 


100 


Bailey  sat  on  the  porch-rail  staring  at  his 
cigarette. 

"  Jove  !"  he  said.  "  I  guess  I  could  give 
you  the  cue  to  the  situation.  I  guess  it's 
Miss  Ruley  that's  made  the  difficulty.  She's 
got  a — well,  a  kind  of  a  reason  that  might 
make  her  act  queer  in  a  case  like  this.  I 
don't  say  it's  a  good  reason,  but  it's  the  sort 
of  thing  that  would  make  matters  a  little 
hard  if  she  cared  for  a  man  and  had  to  ex- 
plain." 

Grace's  eyes  flashed  in  the  darkness  of  the 
side-porch. 

"  Bailey !"  she  cried,  "  how  glad  I  am  I 
spoke  of  this  business !  Go  on — go  on  and 
tell  me !" 

But  Bailey  suddenly  stiffened. 

"  I'd  like  to,"  he  signified,  "  but  it  wouldn't 
be  straight.  What  I  didn't  drop  to  myself  a 
fellow  I've  met  since  I  was  in  the  city  this 
last  trip  told  me  in  dead  confidence-^-man 
named  Wilmuth.  Honest,  Gracie,  I  can't 
give  it  away.  Don't  ask  me.  I  can't  do  it." 

"  Look  here  !"  cried  Gracie.  "  I'm  dying 
to  know  what  you're  onto.  Tell  me,  Bailey ! 
I'll  do  anything — I'm  not  sure,  after  all,  but 


101 


I'll  sign  with  you.  Yes,  Bailey ;  you  tell  me. 
I'm  going  to  sign  with  you  !" 

The  next  instant  she  saw  her  mistake. 
Bailey's  boyish  eyes  hardened. 

"  I  wish  to  God  you  hadn't  said  that,"  he 
declared.  "  You  must  have  a  dead-low  opin- 
ion of  me.  I  don't  make  any  bluff  about 
honor  and  that  rot.  I'm  no  man  in  a  story- 
book to  split  hairs  and  beat  his  conscience 
into  a  froth ;  but  you  better  believe  I'm  not 
going  to  sell  my  soul  for  your  signature." 

He  cast  his  cigarette  away  with  an  indig- 
nant motion.  His  head  was  up,  his  jaws  set. 
He  looked  down  upon  the  girl  in  the  chair 
with  a  glance  of  steady  contempt. 

Grace  watched  him  with  surprise.  Was 
this  Bailey — the  mild,  conciliating  Bailey — 
always  politic,  always  bent  with  gentle,  and 
often  unscrupulous,  determination  on  his 
own  ends — this  man  with  the  squared  chin 
and  scathing  eyes  ? 

Something  like  admiration  crept  into  Gra- 
cie's  shrewd  gaze — something  stirred  in  her 
heart. 

"  Bailey,"  she  said,  impulsively,  "  I  admire 
you  more  this  minute  than  I  ever  did  or  ever 


102 


expected  to.  You've  always  seemed  to  me 
just  a  manager.  You  strike  me  now  as  a 
man.  I'm  glad  I  tempted  you — or  tried  to 
tempt  you — if  only  to  find  out  what  kind  of 
a  man  you  really  are.  Here's  my  hand  on  it, 
Bailey  V' 

Bailey's  cast-iron  mood  dropped  off.  He 
breathed  a  little  uncertainly  as  he  took  her 
warmly  proffered  fingers.  He  was  even  more 
disturbed  as  he  saw  on  Grade's  face,  upheld 
in  the  half -gloom,  an  expression  of  honest 
and  simple  sincerity. 

"Gracie,"  he  said,  "I  didn't  think  you'd 
ever  make  a  fool  of  me!  I  thought  I  was 
proof  against  your  little  tricks.  But,  by 
Jove!  when  you  look  like  that  —  like  a  dear 
little  kind-hearted  woman  instead  of  a — " 

"Goon." 

"  You  know  what  I  mean  ! — don't  tell  me 
to  go  on  unless  you  want  to  hear — that — 
that—" 

"  Well  ?" 

"  Oh,  the  devil ! — I  might  know  you  don't 
care  a  rap !  Good-bye,  Gracie."  He  turned 
angrily  on  his  heel,  put  about  by  the  light 
mockery  of  Grace's  tone.  But  this  accent 


103 


had  altogether  vanished  when  she  lifted  her 
voice  and  said,  very  softly,  "  Bailey  !" 

He  turned.  She  was  leaning  forward, 
smiling  rather  gravely. 

"  Grace,"  he  said,  still  standing  away  and 
speaking  brusquely,  "  be  plain.  You're  not 
fooling  with  a  boy.  It's  dead  serious  with 
me.  Are  you  in  earnest  ?" 

"  If  I  should  be—" 

He  flung  himself  beside  her. 

"  If  you  care  for  me,  G-racie.  if  you  care — " 
She  laughed  softly. 

"  If  I  didn't,"  she  said,  presently,  "  you  can 
bet  your  arm  wouldn't  be  where  it  is  now  !"  • 


IX 


ON  the  next  morning  Wade  had  a  passing 
glimpse  of  Elizabeth,  as  he  stood  in  the  office 
unfolding  the  heavy  sheets  of  the  Sunday 
paper. 

"Ah,"  said  a  deep  utterance  behind  him, 
"  it  grieves  me,  my  friend,  to  see  this  !  It  is 
a  reprobate  nation  that  pollutes  His  day  with 
such  like.  They  are  ill-fitted  for  the  Word 
who  first  fill  themselves  with  the  contents  of 
a  news-sheet."  Wade  smiled  a  little  under 
the  long  denunciative  finger  pointing  at  the 
journal  iu  his  hands.  He  was  less  aware  of 
it  than  of  the  figure  coming  along  behind 
Mr.  Ruley's  tall  form. 

The  two  were  going  to  church  apparently, 
for  Elizabeth  carried  a  little  black  book,  from 
which  a  narrow  purple  ribbon  hung.  There 
was  a  kind  of  sorrowful  composure  in  her 
soft  features. 

" '  Cold,  cold,  my  girl !'  "  murmured  Wade 


105 


to  himself,  in  a  pained  acceptance  of  her  at- 
titude, as  she  passed  by,  giving  him  a  sense 
of  something  chill  and  sweet  and  unearthly 
as  a  breath  from  a  flower-set  altar.  Upon 
that  vision  of  her  he  was  obliged  to  nourish 
his  thoughts  all  day,  for,  after  the  morning 
service,  she  went  up-stairs  and  reappeared  no 
more.  On  the  edge  of  dark  he  saw  Graham 
and  Mr.  Ruley  setting  forth  as  if  to  some 
meeting  which  a  distant  church-bell  was  an- 
nouncing. 

At  the  head  of  the  steps  they  paused,  be- 
ing accosted  by  Miss  Gayle,  who  floated  from 
her  mother's  side  and  joined  them. 

"  Where  is  Miss  Ruley  ?"  she  asked.  "  I 
want  to  see  her  about  something  special." 
The  old  preacher  surveyed,  with  a  certain 
pious  tolerance,  the  small  white-clad  shape  at 
his  elbow. 

"  She  is  in  her  room,"  he  said,  "  and  feel- 
ing less  like  herself  than  I  could  wish.  I 
think  she  would  scarcely  desire  to  be  disturbed 
just  now,  since  she  was — I  may  say — unable 
to  accompany  us  to  divine  service." 

"  She'll  be  down  after  a  while,"  Graham 
assured  Gracie,  with  a  glance  appreciative  of 


106 


the  rose-dashed  lips  and  curled  black  hair  of 
the  small  person  beyond  him.  "  I  think  she 
said,  sir,  that  she  would  join  us  on  the  porch 
upon  our  return  ?" 

"  I  believe  so,"  owned  the  old  man.  "  Come, 
Frederic.  Let  us  not  offend  the  Most  High, 
as  so  many  are  wont,  by  appearing  late  in 
His  house." 

Wade,  not  overhearing  this  brief  talk,  ob- 
served the  emptying  piazza  with  growing 
gloom.  A  "  sacred  concert "  was  forward  in 
one  of  the  big  beach-stands,  and  people  were 
moving  down  the  street  in  waxing  multitudes. 
Joining  these  throngs,  Wade,  with  his  hat  sulk- 
ing over  his  eyes,  found  himself  at  first  indif- 
ferent to  the  extraordinary  crush  of  the  prom- 
enade. In  both  directions  a  sweeping  host 
pushed,  and  as  he  took  in,  with  perhaps  a  cer- 
tain acerbity  of  criticism,  the  mass  of  people, 
it  seemed  to  Wade  that  only  by  the  seldom- 
est  occasion  any  individual  had  the  slightest 
distinction  of  feature,  bearing,  or  apparel. 

Muslins  and  laces  and  flowers  and  per- 
fumes and  pink  cheeks  and  dimples  and  curls 
mixed  in  a  definite  aggregation  of  common- 
place youthful  prettiness.  Matronly  silks 


107 


touched  the  scene  with  spots  of  purple  and 
black.  Scarcely  any  men  beyond  middle  age 
were  to  be  seen,  and  at  this  hour  no  children 
whatever.  A  gratifying  lack  of  pretension 
marked  the  crowd.  Only  now  and  then  a 
rich  toilet  walked  sublime  among  the  home- 
wrought  frocks  of  the  women-folk,  a  splendor 
commonly  fitting  the  lavish  contours  of  some 
middle-aged  lady,  whose  heavily  prosperous 
air  seemed  a  little  new  to  her. 

No  one  appeared  to  care  much  for  the 
chalky  reach  of  sea  dashing  its  lime -white 
powder  on  the  sands.  The  sky,  all  dappled 
with  bronze,  hung  low  and  bright.  A  soft 
wind  whirred  in  from  the  ocean,  and  as  it 
darkened  beyond  twilight  a  distant  yacht  dis- 
closed itself  as  a  mere  blur  of  orange  in  the 
gathering  shadows. 

Feeling  out  of  harmony  with  the  great 
good  cheer  of  the  crowd,  Wade  started  back 
to  the  hotel.  The  town  had  a  singular  as- 
pect of  loneliness,  having  poured  its  thou- 
sands out  upon  the  verge  of  the  sea.  Streets 
and  porches  looked  deserted.  Electric  lights 
burned  with  a  waste  luxuriance  over  the  emp- 
ty spaces,  like  candles  set  by  the  dead,  The 


108 


very  stars  glimmered  far  and  pale,  and  sud- 
denly, as  Wade  looked  up,  one  of  them  shot 
out  of  space,  burning  a  long  scar  in  the  dark 
face  of  the  night. 

That  fading  cleft  of  saffron  gave  the  young 
man  an  odd  feeling  of  human  littleness  and 
individual  desolation,  and  this  was  not  dissi- 
pated by  the  absolutely  forsaken  aspect  of 
the  Dorsheimer  Arms.  The  piazza  was  a 
long  vista  of  empty  chairs.  The  very  office 
had  only  one  occupant — a  bell-boy  sitting 
asleep  on  the  bench  below  the  signal-board. 

An  enchantment  of  silence  hung  upon  ev- 
erything. But  as  Wade's  foot  rang  loud  on 
the  threshold,  there  vibrated  through  the 
strange  stillness  of  the  place  a  sound  which 
drew  him  motionless.  The  sound  of  a  voice, 
it  was,  bitter  and  sharp,  and  echoing  from 
the  bare  expanse  of  the  reading-room. 

"  Never,"  it  swept  out  strong  and  stern — 
"  never  shall  I  overlook  this  abomination  you 
have  worked.  According  to  your  treachery 
another  than  I  shall  deal  with  you,  yea,  ac- 
cording to  the  measure  of  your  sin.  I  cannot 
wonder  that  you  weep.  It  would  be  past  all 
hardihood  if  you  were  not  something  eon- 


109 


founded  with  your  shame.  Oh,  that  you  had 
died  in  the  hour  that  gave  you  birth  !  That 
I  had  rendered  you  back  to  God,  pure  in 
your  infancy,  than  that  you  had  lived  to  turn 
and  pollute  my  name  now  when  my  hands 
are  waxed  feeble !  Yea,  God !  Thou  hast 
scourged  me  with  rods,  Thou  hast  poured  me 
out  like  water,  Thou  hast  smitten  me  in  the 
work  of  my  hands,  and  I  have  been  silent. 
Now  I  am  laid  waste  utterly.  I  am  in  the 
dust.  I  am  uprooted  and  dishonored !" 

Wade  had  stepped  forward.  The  single 
gas-jet  in  the  reading-room  flickered  low,  and 
in  the  centre  of  the  dimly-lighted  room  the  old 
Indiana  preacher  stood  tall  and  terrible,  with 
an  outstretched,  anathematizing  hand.  Three 
others  were  in  the  apartment — Graham,  just 
beyond  the  old  man,  touched  an  averted  face 
with  a  troubled  finger;  against  the  post  of 
the  ball-room  door  Grace  Gayle  leaned,  pale, 
with  scared  eyes  and  breathless  lips ;  and 
immediately  before  her  father,  shrinking,  cow- 
ering under  his  harsh  outpour  of  words,  Eliz- 
abeth Ruley  stood  covering  her  white  face 
with  two  trembling  hands. 

"  Don't — oh,  don't — condemn  me  so  utter- 


110 


ly  !"  she  moaned.  "  I  don't  try  to — to  excuse 
myself.  I  have  sinned,  father — yes,  yes  !  But 
we  had  nothing,  nothing  to  live  on  !  I  couldn't 
see  you  take  the — the  miserable  pension  the 
church  that  turned  you  off  would  have  flung 
to  you  in  charity  !  Father,  no  !  Believe  me — 
oh,  believe  me ! — it  wasn't  for  myself  that  I 
wronged  you  —  that  I  sold  myself — that  I 
practised  this  shameful  deceit !  It  was  for 
you — for — " 

"  Do  not  dare,"  -broke  in  the  old  man, 
with  a  fearful  gleam  in  his  wrathful  face,  "  to 
make  me  the  apology  of  your  iniquity.  Bet- 
ter I  had  starved  than  that  this  should  have 
come  upon  me.  Have  I  loved  life  so  as  to 
purchase  it  at  such  a  price  ?  No  !  Upon  your 
own  head  be  the  reward  of  your  evil !  for  I 
stand  henceforth  aside  from  your  deceits. 
You  are  no  issue  of  mine,  who  am  left  deso- 
late, betrayed  even  by  my  own  loins."  He 
swung  on  his  heel,  and  brushed  off,  with  an 
imperious  gesture,  the  hands  of  the  woman 
who  had  fallen  down  before  him  and  would 
have  clasped  his  knees. 

Graham,  with  a  motion  of  helpless  pain, 
wheeled  past  Grace  Gayle  and  into  the  dark- 


Ill 


ness  of  the  dance-hall.  Grace  hung  against 
the  door,  mute  and  motionless,  as  the  old  man 
strode  towards  the  office.  In  its  hard  impla- 
cability his  face  looked  like  a  mask  of  iron. 
His  gaze  was  fierce  and  fixed,  and  a  vigor  be- 
yond the  mere  vigor  of  young  blood  stirred 
in  his  long  gait  and  swinging  arms.  And 
where  he  had  left  her  Elizabeth  crouched, 
with  forlorn  face  bent  upon  him,  and  with 
one  miserably  shaking  hand  even  yet  reach- 
ing after  him  in  piteous  appeal. 

Viewing  this  concentrated  presentment  of 
human  passion,  altogether  unintelligible  to 
him  except  in  its  effects,  Wade's  breath  came 
quick.  A  tumult  of  generous  impulse  surged 
in  him,  and  his  heart  lifted  as  if  a  great  flood 
bore  it  up.  He  jostled  the  old  man's  obdu- 
rate form  as  he  passed  it  in  his  haste. 

"  Elizabeth,"  he  said,  lifting  her,  and  heed- 
less of  the  girl  in  the  doorway  who  stood 
staring,  or  the  old  man  who  paused  to  cast 
back  a  startled  eye,  "  I  don't  know  what  is 
wrong.  I  don't  ask.  I  only  tell  you  my  be- 
lief in  you  isn't  changed.  And  as  to  my  love 
— that  is  more  yours  than  ever  because  you 
are  troubled  and  forsaken." 


ELIZABETH'S  eyes  turned  with  vague  in- 
credulity upon  Wade.  She  seemed  to  take 
in  with  a  certain  dimness  of  comprehen- 
sion the  details  of  his  presence — the  loung- 
ing shoulders,  cropped  mustache,  kind  eyes, 
straight  hair. 

"  You  don't  know,"  she  half  whispered 
— "  you  don't  know  about  me  ?" 

"  I  know  you  are  good,  and  that  I  love 
you.  That's  enough." 

"  Oh,"  she  murmured,  cringing,  "  tell  him, 
Gracie — tell  him !"  She  broke  away  from 
him,  and  in  another  instant  he  heard  her 
swift,  light  steps  on  the  stair. 

Wade's  questioning  face  turned  upon  the 
little  dancer. 

Grace  drew  a  sobbing  breath.  "It  was 
me,"  she  cried,  faintly.  "  I  did  it.  I 
blurted  the  whole  thing  right  out.  You  see 
it  was  this  way :  Bailey  told  me  all  about  it 


113 


last  night — it  was  right  for  him  to  tell  me, 
because  we've  got  things  all  fixed  up,  and 
he's  spoke  to  mom  and  everything — and  I 
wanted  to  see  Elizabeth  and  tell  her  I  knew, 
and  that  I  liked  her  better  than  ever  and  was 
proud  to  call  her  my  friend.  And  I  chased 
around  all  evening  looking  for  her,  though 
Bailey,  when  he  went  back  to  town  on  the 
five  train,  told  me  I  better  not  let  her  know 
I  was  on.  But  I  haven't  the  sense  God 
gives  little  ducks !"  cut  in  Gracie,  weeping ; 
"  and  when  I  found  her  in  this  room  read- 
ing all  by  herself  I  rushed  in  and  out  with 
the  whole  business.  I  told  her  I  knew  every- 
thing. I  went  over  it  all,  and  was  just  beg- 
ging her  to  tell  me  if  you  knew.  And  then 
we  heard  something  drop  on  the  floor — 
a  cane,  I  guess — and  we  looked  round  and 
there  they  stood  in  the  door — Graham  and 
old  Ruley.  They'd  heard  enough.  I  thought 
the  old  man  would  die  right  there.  He  was 
calm  as  an  icicle.  He  made  her  give  him 
particulars.  And  then  he  blazed  off  like 
something  mad.  He  went  on  at  her  like — 
oh,  well,  you  heard  some  of  his  remarks  ! 
Hateful,  narrow-minded — " 

8 


114 


"Grade  ! — what  for  ? — that's  what  I'm  try- 
ing to  find  out.  What  does  he  accuse  her 
of  ? — the  sweetest  creature  on  this  earth." 

"  Oh,"  moaned  Grace,  distractedly,  "  I  for- 
got you  hadn't  heard.  She's  Mary  Averne, 
Elizabeth  is.  They  say  her  Juliet's  some- 
thing great.  Bailey's  seen  her  play.  He 
didn't  recognize  her  at  first,  though  he  said 
he  was  always  haunted  by  a  feeling  that  her 
face  was  familiar.  But  he  never  actually 
knew  really  who  she  was  till  that  day  on 
the  beach  when  you  and  Graham  were  strug- 
gling out  in  the  ocean.  Then  he  said  some- 
thing like  a  mask  seemed  to  drop  from  her 
face.  She  lost  hold  of  herself  for  a  minute. 
Pain  is  pain.  Whether  you're  acting  it  or 
feeling  it,  I  guess  it  looks  pretty  much  alike. 
Anyhow,  Bailey  knew  her — that  quick.  He 
remembered  Mary  Averne  where  she  takes 
the  poison  and  says,  '  This  do  I  drink  to 
thee  !'  " 

"  Mary  Averne  ! — " 

"  But  Bailey  never  said  a  word  to  any  one. 
And  a  couple  of  weeks  ago  he  met  her  lead- 
ing man  in  town— a  Mr.  Wilmuth.  And 
Wilmuth  told  him  considerable  about  her — 


115 


how  he'd  met  her  down  here  on  the  beach 
one  night,  and  she  begged  him  not  to  give 
her  away.  She  said  her  father  mustn't  know. 
And  Wilmuth  promised.  But  seeing  Bailey 
was  onto  things — why,  they  talked  it  over." 

"But  how— but  how—" 

"  — Did  she  keep  the  old  man  in  the  dark  ? 
As  far  as  I  can  make  out  it  was  mostly  the 
Chicago  lady's  idea.  She  thought  Elizabeth 
clever.  She'd  heard  her  speak  little  pieces 
at  Sunday-school  entertainments.  And  when 
the  old  man  lost  his  grip  with  the  church  she 
sent  for  Elizabeth  and  got  her  in  the  way 
of  reading  round  at  parlor  entertainments. 
And  some  manager  offered  to  star  her  in  a 
Western  circuit.  lie  made  her  good  terms, 
and  the  Chicago  lady  persuaded  her  into  it. 
So  they  fixed  up  that  the  old  man  wasn't  to 
find  out  what  he  owed  his  bread-and-butter 
to — it  seems  he  don't  think  well  of  the  stage. 
And  as  he  got  Elizabeth's  letters  all  from 
Chicago,  why,  he  never  suspected  a  thing 
till  I  gave  it  away  " —  She  sprang  up  sud- 
denly from  the  arm  of  the  leather  couch  on 
which,  during  this  narrative,  she  had  support- 
ed herself.  People  were  coming  back  from 


116 


the  beach.  Aware  of  her  disordered  looks, 
Grace  sped  away  and  up  the  spiral  staircase. 

Presently  after  Wade  came  upon  Graham, 
who  motioned  him  aside.  The  youngpreacher 
looked  terribly  put  about. 

"  A  surprisingly  unpleasant  thing,"  he  said. 
"  You've  heard  ?  Heavens,  what  a  blow  !" 

"  To—" 

"  Oh,  to  all  of  us ! — the  old  man's  done 
for.  He  won't  survive  this  bolt,  mark  me." 

"  Bolt ! — you  talk  strangely.  Is  the  mere 
fact  of  having  a  daughter  who  is  an  ac- 
tress— " 

"  Oh,  you  take  that  view  !  Her  deceiving 
him,  I  suppose,  doesn't  cut  any  figure  in  your 
judgment  of  the  girl  ?" 

"  Asperity  and  dogmatism  in  a  father  ex- 
cuse cowardice  and  stratagem  in  a  child." 

"  That  sounds  like  a  sentiment  in  a  copy- 
book. I  don't  say  her  course  was  unpardon- 
able, but  I  can  feel  for  Ruley's  side  of  it, 
too.  She  knew  how  he  regarded  that  sort  of 
thing—" 

"  With  the  ferocious  illiberality  he  applies 
to  everything." 

"  But  she  knew,  too,  how  fond  of  her  he 


117 


is.  She  might,  at  least,  have  talked  to  him 
on  the  subject  of  her  ambitions.  It  would 
have  been  honester." 

"  She  knew  better  than  to  consult  him. 
That  libellous  creed  of  his,  which  accounts 
human  nature  as  mere  dregs  and  dross,  would 
have  damned  her  as  surely  for  the  idea  as 
for  the  act.  And  instead  of  considering  the 
poor  child's  '  ambitions,'  you'd  better  remem- 
ber her  necessities." 

"  There  were  other  means." 

"  This  moral  babble  comes  poorly  from 
you,  Graham  —  you  who  '  hunt  the  trail  of 
policy.'  She  was  forced  to  the  line  she  un- 
dertook by  every  pressure  of  surrounding  and 
heredity.  Every  quality  she  has  she  derives 
naturally  from  the  man  who  repudiates  her 
with  such  noble  fury.  She  is  perhaps  only 
a  little  less  dramatic  than  he  himself,  and 
only  a  little  less  morbidly  conscientious.  I 
don't  doubt  that  she's  been  frightfully  un- 
happy in  this  life  she's  been  leading,  or  that 
she  believes  herself  to  be  all  that  her  father 
declared  her." 

"  You  speak  with  heat,"  said  Graham. 
"  What  I'm  principally  engrossed  with,  how- 


118 


ever,  is  my  own  share  in  the  situation.  It 
goes  hard  with  me  to  find  out  these  facts  con- 
cerning Miss  Ruley.  It  changes  my  plans ; 
knocks  the  wind  out  of  my  sails.  When  I 
spoke  apparently  against  her  just  now,  it  was 
to  get  your  views.  It  did  me  good  to  hear 
you  take  up  for  her.  Personally  I  don't  care 
a  rap  that  she's  been  on  the  stage.  The  thing 
adds  a  glamour  to  my  notions  of  her.  There's 
more  in  her  than  I  dreamed  of.  I've  heard 
often  in  the  West  of  Mary  Averne  and  her 
promise.  I've  heard  her  beauty  and  genius 
discussed  more  than  once.  And  to  think 
this  little,  still,  dove-eyed  girl  should  be  the 
same  woman !  It's  amazing,  and  it  fasci- 
nates my  imagination.  But  it  makes  it  out 
of  the  question  for  me  to  marry  her.  The 
stage  and  the  pulpit  can't  mix  quite  so 
intimately.  This  isn't  the  millennium.  A 
preacher's  bound  to  respect  established  prej- 
udices. If  I  walked  after  my  desires  I 
should  pay  for  the  happiness  with  my  ca- 
reer. I  haven't  power  enough  to  grasp  the 
nettle  of  public  opinion  in  my  hand  and 
crush  the  stings  out  of  it.  So  I  know  better 
than  to  touch  the  thing — an  exceeding  tough 


119 


business  in  any  case.  It's  rough,  though — 
by  Heaven  it  is  !  And  philosophy  is  a  cursed 
poor  substitute  for  my  sweet  Bessie's  cleft 
little  chin  and  big  childlike  eyes  !" 

"  Poor  as  it  is,"  cut  in  Wade,  with  sudden 
irascibility,  "  you'd  have  had  to  make  it  serve 
even  if  Miss  Ruley  had  remained  what  you 
thought  her — an  obscure  young  person,  un- 
stigmatized  by  any  blemish  of  talent.  For 
she  would  not  have  married  you,  permit  me 
to  say  with  certainty." 

Graham  stared. 

"  Upon  what — upon  what  grounds — " 

Wade  regarded  him  quietly.  And  as  they 
faced  each  other  in  silence  Graham  suddenly 
seemed  to  comprehend  what  the  other's  sug- 
gestive stillness  implied.  He  swallowed  hard, 
and  drew  his  nether  lip  against  his  teeth. 

"  I  should  like,"  he  said  in  a  moment — "  I 
should  like  to  hurl  you  over  that  rail.  It's 
you,  is  it?  ah!"  Wade  burst  into  a  little 
laugh. 

"  Don't  do  it,  old  chap  !"  he  said.  "  Re- 
member who  you  are,  even  if  you  forgot 
whom  you're  addressing.  The  theological 
verities  ! — you  can't  afford  to  overlook  them !" 


120 


Graham  turned  away,  and  then,  after  a  mo- 
ment, wheeled  back  and  clapped  Wade's  arm 
rather  cordially,  though  his  face  was  grayish. 

"  All  right,"  he  said.  "  You  and  I  can't 
quarrel.  I  remember  that  hideous  hour  out 
in  that  stretch  of  sea,  when — no,  Wade,  no ! 
I  deserve  this.  I'm  like  a  dastard  in  battle 
slain  with  the  spear  he  has  dropped  in  fleeing 
— nasty  sensation."  In  a  moment  he  asked, 
"  Is  it  all  settled — between  you  two  ?" 

"  It's  settled  with  me,"  smiled  Wade. 
"  The  other  may  take  time.  But  my  life's 
before  me !" 

"  Oh,  that's  it !  She — yes,  she  loves  you. 
A  hundred  circumstances  of  proof  recur  to 
me.  But  if  you've  got  to  win  her  across  this 
breach — alas !  you'll  need  your  wit,  my  boy. 
Sweet  as  she  is,  she  is  narrow,  too — a  Calvin- 
ist  at  heart.  You  should  have  heard  her  self- 
accusations  just  now !  She'll  refuse  to  blur 
your  purple." 

"  And  you  ?"  suggested  Wade. 

"  Oh,  you  press  me  home  !  I  shall  make 
my  farewells  to  Ruley  forthwith.  And  to- 
morrow morning,  when  you  come  down,  I 
shall  be  gone.  I'd  go  to-night,"  he  interpo- 


121 


lated  ironical!}7,  "only  Sabbath  travelling, 
you  know  —  ah  well !"  He  thrust  out  and 
clasped  Wade's  hand,  and,  having  wrung  it 
hard,  turned  about  and  left  him. 


XI 


THE  morning  broke  gloomily,  with  a  pee- 
vish kind  of  drizzle  fretting  against  the  panes, 
which,  as  Wade  glanced  through  them,  dis- 
closed a  distorted  gray  world  without  form 
or  fixity.  The  ocean  looked  like  a  great  cyl- 
inder of  zinc.  Its  rising  convexity  was  un- 
marked of  any  object  except  the  black  shark- 
shape  of  a  barge  driving  to  leeward.  Even 
the  Lizzie  B — the  little  pleasure-yacht  always 
to  be  seen  off  the  bar  of  mornings  and  nights 
— seemed  to  have  scudded  out  of  reach  of  a 
threatening  storm.  The  streets  were  drenched 
to  an  ochreous  hue,  and  every  passing  omni- 
bus was  loaded  with  people  for  whom  the 
end  of  the  season  had  been  hastened  by  re- 
ports of  a  big  rainfall. 

Things  in  the  lower  part  of  the  Dorsheimer 
Arms  were  cheerless  enough  to  account  for 
any  number  of  rapid  departures.  Over  it 
hung  the  dreariness  peculiar  in  time  of  foul 


133 


weather  to  houses  built  for  summer  and  sun- 
shine ;  and  guests  who  were  not  paying  bills 
and  otherwise  preparing  to  take  leave  stood 
about  desolately,  making  little  effort  at  occu- 
pation. A  party  of  elderly  women  in  the 
parlor  were  playing  a  sober  game  of  cards. 
A  child,  unoppressed  by  the  general  atmos- 
phere, beat  with  a  fist  upon  the  keys  of  an 
aged  piano  which  lingered  ingloriously  be- 
hind a  door  of  the  reading-room.  The  clerk, 
busy  and  distracted,  now  and  then  threw  as 
polite  a  word  as  he  seemed  able  to  evoke  to 
the  group  of  girls  hanging  about  his  desk. 
For  once  mirth  was  notably  absent  from 
the  rooms  and  corridors  of  the  Dorsheimer 
Arms,  and  Wade,  coming  in  from  a  walk  on 
the  sodden  porch,  was  conscious  of  leaving 
better  cheer  behind  him  than  the  office  af- 
forded. 

Presently  his  observance  of  the  stairway 
was  rewarded  by  the  appearance  of  two  fig- 
ures, at  sight  of  which  he  rose  at  once.  Eliza- 
beth Ruley,  with  Miss  Gayle  at  her  elbow, 
came  towards  him.  At  his  look  of  interroga- 
tion she  said,  hopelessly,  "  He  will  not  see 
me  at  all.  I  have  sent  to  ask  him.  I  have 


134 


gone  to  his  door."  She  drew  a  sharp  breath, 
adding,  "  He  did  not  even  speak  to  me." 
Hurrying  on,  she  touched  Wade's  sleeve  with 
a  little  impetuous  motion  of  appeal.  "  He 
likes  you  so  much  ! — do  you  think,  would  you 
be  willing  to — to  go  to  him  ?  Oh,  if  you 
could  persuade  him  just  to  see  me !  Any- 
thing would  be  better  for  him  than  this  !  He 
was  just  so  when  —  when  his  other  trouble 
came  upon  him — the  church  trouble.  He 
shut  himself  up,  and  we  could  not  tell  how  he 
was  taking  it  or  what  he  might  do." 

"  I  will  do  anything  you  advise,"  said 
Wade,  feeling  his  throat  ache  at  sight  of  her 
drawn  little  face  and  shadowed  eyes.  "  Sit 
here  while  I  go  and  see  what  can  be  done." 

lie  left  her  in  the  reading-room,  and  went 
away  and  sent  up  to  Mr.  Ruley  a  formal  re- 
quest to  speak  with  him ;  but  the  bell  -  boy 
who  carried  the  message  returned  to  say 
that  Mr.  Ruley  was  unable  to  see  any  one. 
Obliged  to  carry  this  information  to  the 
young  woman  in  the  reading-room,  Wade 
had  the  further  discomfort  of  seeing  her 
deeply  cast  down  by  the  failure  of  her  plan. 
Her  head  dropped  despairingly  against  the 


126 


worn  leather  of  the  long  couch -pillow,  and 
her  hands  twisted  together  in  an  extremity  of 
anguish. 

"  I  deserve  it,"  she  breathed.  "  He  is 
just,  only  just,  my  father,  in  casting  me  off 
like  this.  I  did  not  want  to  ask  his  forgive- 
ness. I  cannot  ever  hope  for  that.  But  there 
are  many  ways  in  which  he  needs  me  :  I 
must  help  him  dress,  I  must  fix  the  beef-tea 
for  him,  and  take  his  breakfast  up.  I  only 
want  to  beg  him  to  let  me  serve  him  in  the 
old  way.  But  I  am  not  fit  even  for  that !" 

"  Elizabeth  !"  cried  Wade,  "  don't  blame 
yourself  like  this  !" 

"I  can  never  blame  myself  enough.  I 
want  to  tell  him  that  I  haven't  waited  till 
now  for  punishment.  I've  had  it  right  along — 
daily,  hourly.  I  never  threw  myself  so  com- 
pletely into  any  character  but  that  I  was  con- 
scious of  my  own  guilt  and  danger,  and  won- 
dering if  there  might  not  be  in  the  audience 
that  saw  me  some  one  who  knew  Elizabeth 
Ruley.  When  I  was  home  at  odd  times  in 
High  Ripple,  or  anywhere  with  my  father,  I 
tried  to  make  my  face  absolutely  blank,  for 
fear  a  vivid  expression  of  any  sort  of  thought 


126 


or  feeling  might  recall  to  a  stranger's  eye 
the  face  of  Mary  Averne.  I  locked  myself 
in  a  kind  of  stony  cell  of  control,  and  I  stifled 
there,  longing  sometimes  to  cry  out,  to  mani- 
fest in  one  way  or  other  the  poor  self  that 
was  thus  barred  in,  walled  up.  I  have  suf- 
fered —  yes,  I  have  suffered,  as  it  was  right  I 
should ;  for  I  have  sinned  against  everything 
— rearing,  conviction,  a  daughter's  duty.  Oh, 
I  realize  the  truth  of  what  you  want  to  say  ! 
— that  there  is  nothing  essentially  wrong 
in  the  profession  I  have  followed.  For  most 
women,  perhaps  not.  For  me,  with  my  breed- 
ing and  my  beliefs — yes,  yes  !" 

"  Bat,  dearest !  the  general  truth  can't  be 
the  specific  falsehood,  nor  the  abstract  right 
the  concrete  wrong.  Look  at  the  thing 
broadly,  widely.  Drop  a  standard  that  is 
merely  local  and  temporary.  As  to  your  fa- 
ther's justice,  he  is  just  perhaps,  but  merely 
according  to  the  range  of  one  who  stands 
upon  a  dark  crag  of  moral  vision  and  sees 
only  a  desolated  vallej  below  him.  I  don't 
want  to  offend  you  by  criticising  him,  Eliza- 
beth ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  no  man  is  fit 
to  judge  his  fellow -beings  who  cannot  see 


127 


something  of  the  ineradicable  good  which 
lies  somewhere  in  the  lowest  of  us." 

"  Lowest !"  She  caught  at  the  word. 
"  Yes,  yes  ;  we  are  all  corrupt,  debased — " 

"  Oh  no,  we're  not,  Elizabeth  !  How  your 
mind  fastens  to  its  traditions  of  a  fallen 
race  !  But  it  is  natural  that  you  should  see 
only  what  you  have  been  taught  to  see — 
a  slavish  and  vicious  humanity,  a  violent  and 
tyrannical  God.  These  ideas  belong  to  each 
other.  Change  one  and  the  other  changes. 
See  something  noble  in  the  creature — '  man, 
whose  name  and  nature  God  disdained  not,' 
and  at  once  an  implacable  and  contemptu- 
ous creator  becomes  impossible.  The  work 
of  our  hands  is  dear  to  us  even  in  its  imper- 
fections." 

"  I  think  you  misunderstand  my  father's 
position.  You  are  like  the  church  people 
who  tired  of  his  teachings,  and,  liko  most  folk 
in  this  time  of  creedal  change,  you  prefer 
to  the  Jehovah  of  the  Scriptures  a  smilingly 
complacent  Deity,  who  shall  find  it  pleasanter 
to  be  merciful  than  just.  I  have  old -fash- 
ioned ideas  myself.  I  would  rather  never  bow 
the  knee  at  all  than  worship  a  divine  senti- 


138 


mentalist,  always  readier  to  weep  over  the 
sinner  than  to  approve  the  righteous.  The 
God  of  my.  faith  holds  a  sword,  and  not  a 
censer.  Vice  cannot  be  perfumed  away ;  it 
must  be  cut  off." 

"  Your  faith,  then,  my  dearest,  is  Hebraic 
rather  than  Christian.  You  hold  by  the  law 
rather  than  the  sacrifice." 

"  I  hold  by  my  father's  God." 

"  A  hurler  of  thunder-bolts,  merciless,  vin- 
dictive— a  being,  indeed,  singularly  after  your 
father's  own  mortal  plan.  Have  you  ever  no- 
ticed that  our  gods  are  wonderfully  like 
ourselves  ?  The  Chinese  deity  has  oblique 
eyes,  the  African  thick  lips,  Zeus  of  the 
Athenians  a  Greek  profile.  But  why  are 
we  talking  of  all  this  ?  I  only  want  to  make 
you  believe  that  you  ought  not  to  judge  your- 
self so  harshly.  Your  motives  were  good. 
You  sinned,  perhaps,  in  deceiving  him.  But 
sins  vary ;  some  of  them  have  a  nobler  sa- 
vor than  the  catechism  taste  of  what  is 
merely  moral.  An  unscrupulous  honesty 
isn't  the  highest  good.  To  be  willing,  for 
another's  happiness,  to  sin  and  bear  the  in- 
evitable issue  of  sin,  seems  to  me  some- 


129 


thing  finer  than  the  rough-shod  virtue  which 
tramples  heavenward  upon  the  sensibilities 
of  other  people." 

"  Oh,"  she  murmured,  "  how  gently  you 
deal  with — with — " 

"  The  woman  I  love  ?"  He  laughed  softly. 
In  her  next  words  she  took  tacit  account  of 
this  murmured  phrase. 

"  Your  very  generosity  separates  us  in- 
finitely," she  said. 

Wade  frowned. 

"  My  generosity  ?" 

"  Don't  you  see  how  it  is  ? — I  am  the  more 
unworthy." 

"  Oh,  a  jackstraw  of  a  notion  for  me  to 
overthrow  !"  He  laughed  again,  committing 
the  error  of  refusing  to  take  her  scruples  se- 
riously. "  But  can't  you  see,  dear,  that  you  are 
encouraging  vice  when  you  use  a  man's  virt- 
ues against  him  ?  When  you  are  my  wife — " 

"  A  woman  whose  father  discards  her  isn't 
fit  to  be — your  wife." 

"  I  care  nothing  for — " 

"  /  care.  From  my  father's  hand  or — not 
at  all."  She  spoke  steadily.  He  tried  to  de- 
tain her  that  he  might  attack  this  decision 

9 


130 


from  another  point ;  but  she  went  away, 
only  looking  back  once  over  her  shoulder,  a 
little  shadowy  creature  enough  with  her  sor- 
rowful eyes,  but  with  something  in  her  lips 
of  her  father's  indomitable  quality. 

All  day  long  the  rain  whimpered  on  the 
panes.  Towards  night  a  high  wind  began  to 
whirl  in  from  the  swelling  sea,  whipping 
round  the  house's  frail  walls  in  great  blasts. 
A  constant  thudding  of  shutters  and  an  oc- 
casional crashing  of  insecurely  set  glass  ag- 
gravated the  clamor  of  the  storm.  When 
the  office  door  was  opened  never  so  little 
a  flawy  sweep  of  rain  lifted  the  papers  to 
the  ceiling.  People  whose  summery  cottons 
were  supplemented  with  shawls  and  jackets 
hung  about  stairs  and  halls  talking  ominously 
of  the  various  contingencies  of  a  coast  tem- 
pest. Tidal  waves  were  darkly  mentioned. 
If  the  roof  of  the  Dorsheimer  Arms  stayed 
over  it  every  one  would  be  surprised.  An 
air  of  foreboding  pervaded  the  gloomy  wastes 
of  rooms,  deepening  as  the  blast  screamed 
still  more  shrilly,  and  the  electric  lamps,  sick- 
ening to  mere  scarlet  threads  in  their  crystal 
lobes,  finally  shuddered  out,  and  left  to  the 


131 


jaundiced  rays  of  a  few  hastily-lighted  gas- 
jets  the  scared  faces  of  the  women  grouped 
anxiously  about. 

"  Mom  is  like  she  was  crazy,"  said  Grace 
Gayle  to  Wade,  over  the  baluster.  "  She 
hears  banshees  and  things  keening  under  the 
window.  Between  her  and  Elizabeth  I've  got 
my  hands  full."  She  looked,  indeed,  far  less 
smart  than  her  wont.  Her  hair  was  uncurled, 
and  fell  around  her  common  little  features  in 
masses  much  softer  than  usual.  "  This  is 
beef-tea,"  she  pursued,  indicating  the  covered 
cup  she  carried,  "  for  him.'1'' 

"  Mr.  Ruley  ?" 

"  Mm.  Elizabeth's  promised  to  go  to  bed 
in  case  I  can  get  this  delivered  into  his  own 
hands.  She  says  he's  used  to  having  it  this 
time  every  night.  The  bell-boys  are  mostly 
busy  just  now  holding  down  the  roof — any- 
how, I  don't  see  'em  about.  So  I'm  going  to 
beard  the  lion  myself." 

"  Can't  I  take  it  ?" 

"  I  guess  I'll  try  it  myself,"  she  decided. 
"  I  oughtn't  to  shirk  anything,  for  I  feel  awful 
guilty  about  this  whole  business.  Oh,  if 
Bailey  was  only  here  !" 


132 


"Bailey!  —  oh,  I'd  forgotten.  The  real 
thing,  is  it,  Gracie  ?" 

"  You  can  put  your  last  cent  on  it,"  said 
Gracie,  solemnly ;  "  I  wouldn't  be  going  to 
marry  him  if  it  wasn't.  Oh,  I'm  struck  ! — but 
we're  going  slow  —  very  slow.  This  world- 
without-end  business  ought  not  to  be  rushed. 
If  I  haven't  got  the  everlasting  and  eternal 
kind  of  love  you  read  about,  I  want  to  know 
it  before  I  get  over  my  depth.  That's  what 
I  told  Bailey — that  I  have  to  have  a  long, 
long  time  to  think  it  over.  We're  both  awful 
serious — no  mad  haste  or  other  foolishness 
about  us.  Of  course,  man-like,  Bailey  would 
have  liked  it  better  if  I'd  demanded  less 
time,  but  he  finally  agreed  with  me  that  time 
was  the  only  thing  to  judge  constancy  by. 
So  we're  going  to  wait  six  weeks."  Smiling 
gravely  she  went  on  up-stairs. 

Laying  her  knuckles  against  Mr.  Ruley's 
door  she  held  herself  to  listen.  At  the 
second  knock  the  slow  and  steady  sound  of 
pacing  feet  within  the  room  ceased,  and  a 
voice  said,  "  Well  ?" 

"  Your  beef-tea,"  replied  Gracie,  assuming 
a  boyish  intonation. 


ffelf* 

;'THIS  is  BEEF-TEA  FOR  ///.v'" 


133 


"  None  to-night,  thank  you." 

"  Please,  sir — " 

"Well?" 

"  I  got  to  obey  orders.  They  told  me  to 
leave  it."  There  was  a  kind  of  murmur 
from  behind  the  dark  panels.  Then  the  key 
clicked,  and  Mr.  Ruley's  face  showed  in  a 
narrow  opening  of  the  door. 

It  was  so  stern — that  stony -looking  face 
with  its  hollow,  feverish  eyes  and  tufts  of 
brows  and  frayed  ends  of  rumpled  hair — that 
Gracie  uttered  a  little  gasp  of  alarm.  Mr. 
Rulcy  stared  distantly  at  her  and  his  long 
nostrils  dilated.  He  made  a  sudden  move- 
ment as  if  to  shut  the  door  again,  but  Grace 
put  herself  in  the  way. 

"  Woman,"  began  Mr.  Ruley,  sternly. 
Grade's  blood  rose. 

"  Bear  in  mind  that  I'm  not  your  daughter. 
You  can't  call  me  names.  I've  never  taken 
abuse  from  any  one,  and  I  won't  from  you  ! 
Here's  your  beef-tea.  I  guess  it  ain't  very 
hot,  but  I  had  trouble  enough  to  get  it  as  it 
is.  But  Elizabeth — " 

"  I  refuse  to  hear  any  more." 

"  Unless  you're  going  to  shut  the  door  on 


134 


my  hand,  you'll  have  to.  I'm  not  afraid  of 
you — I  have  been,  but  I'm  not  now.  -I  don't 
respect  you  enough  to  be  afraid.  No,  not  if 
you  are  a  preacher ! — a  preacher !"  she  re- 
peated in  an  accent  of  irony,  "  why,  if  you 
were  the  One  you  preach  about  you  couldn't 
set  yourself  up  any  higher!  For  even  He 
isn't  too  holy  to  forgive  folks  that  slip  up 
once  and  again,  and  you  are.  Your  own 
flesh  and  blood,  too  !  That  makes  it  worse. 
It  isn't  because  Elizabeth  has  sinned  against 
God  that  you  carry  on  like  this,  and  won't 
speak  to  her  and  starve  yourself  to  death, 
and  have  folks  trailing  across  a  wet  court- 
yard to  make  you  beef-tea  in  a  big  empty 
kitchen  where  there's  mice  running  around 
— it's  because  she's  sinned  against  you.  It 
isn't  piety  that's  got  you — it's  pride.  That's 
all  I  got  to  say.  I  didn't  expect  to  open 
my  mouth.  I  didn't  dream  I'd  dare  to.  And 
I  got  a  queer,  shaky  feeling  in  my  hands  this 
minute.  Take  this  cup,  quick  !" 

Gasping  a  little  with  excitement,  she  thrust 
the  cup  into  his  hand  and  turned  away.  Half- 
way down  the  corridor  she  glanced  back.  The 
door  of  Mr.  Ruley's  room  was  still  open,  and 


135 


Mr.  Ruley  himself,  drawn  to  some  petrifac- 
tion of  anger  or  amazement,  stood  rooted  in 
the  space.  His  eyes  were  fixed  upon  her 
own  retreating  figure.  The  storm  within 
seemed  to  render  him  unaware  of  the  clash 
and  roar  of  the  storm  without. 

"  Oh,  he's  awful !"  sighed  Grace,  aghast  to 
rememher  what  she  had  said  to  the  old  man. 

After  midnight  the  wind  seemed  some- 
what to  abate.  People  timorously  sought 
their  beds,  and  Wade  presently  went  also 
to  his  room.  It  was  still  very  early  in  the 
morning  when  he  woke  to  find  a  dawn  of 

O 

dazzling  primrose  unfolding  in  the  storm- 
free  sky.  But,  though  it  was  yet  barely  day, 
a  crowd  appeared  to  be  gathering  on  the 
beach,  and,  observing  the  hurrying  midge- 
like  figures  to  the  left  of  the  upper  board 
walk,  Wade  decided  that  perhaps  the  lif  j- 
saving  station  had  been  called  to  service  by 
some  disabled  ship  off  the  bar. 

He  dashed  into  his  clothes.  The  halls 
looked  dark.  No  one  was  stirring,  but  as  the 
young  man  turned  the  stair's  first  landing  he 
saw  a  figure  laboriously  coining  along  the 
passage  below. 


136 


It  took  Wade  another  glance  to  determine 
the  shuffling  form  as  that  of  Mr.  Ruley.  The 
old  preacher  fingered  the  wall  as  he  advanced, 
and  a  ray  of  amber  light  striking  through  a 
window  at  the  end  of  the  hall  gave  his  face 
an  unearthly  kind  of  glow.  His  very  gar- 
ments had  that  air  of  laxity  and  unfitness 
which  a  dead  man's  attire  sometimes  shows 
in  accommodating  itself  to  stiff  limbs.  But 
it  was  his  expression  rather  than  any  details 
of  his  garb  or  gait  which  gave  Wade  a  sense 
of  chill. 

His  gaze  was  very  gentle,  but  its  mildness 
bore  to  the  young  man's  mind  no  intima- 
tion of  benignity.  It  was  hardly  a  spiritual 
conformation  at  all,  but  more  like  a  passive 
fleshly  mood,  as  if  the  spiritual  had  gone  or 
had  utterly  given  over  control  of  the  body. 

"Is  it  you?"  he  said  to  Wade.  "I — was 
looking  for  some  one — " 

"  Your  daughter  ?"  suggested  Wade,  as  the 
old  man  fastened  upon  his  strength  with  a 
kind  of  clinging  satisfaction. 

"  My  daughter  ? — yes.  Yes,  I  believe  so. 
I  wanted  some  one.  It  is  not  good  for  so 
old  a  man  to  be  left  alone."  He  had  turned, 


137 


and  was  guiding  Wade  down  the  passage.  On 
the  threshold  of  his  room  a  few  scraps  of 
broken  china  lay. 

"  I  dropped  it,"  he  said.  "  The  cup  she 
brought  me — the  dancing-girl." 

"  Gracie  ?" 

"  I  believe  so.  She  spoke  to  me  —  of 
many  things.  I  cannot  recall  them  ;  of  Eliz- 
abeth— the  child  of  my  old  age — a  repent- 
ant sinner.  I  should  like  to  recall  what  she 
said,  but  it's  been  so  long  now,  I — I  can't.  I 
have  suffered  much.  But  it  is  God's  great 
tenderness,  His  unceasing  —  unceasing  love 
that  leaves  my  faculties  clear  and  —  and 
strong  through  all  this  stress.  In  green  past- 
ures —  and  by  still  waters — but  I  was  speak- 
ing of  the  dancing -girl — not  Salome — this 
other  one.  The  mighty  fall.  And  through 
His  loving-kindness  the  weak  things  of  this 
world — the  weak  things  prevail.  He  pre- 
pareth  a  table  for  me — He  prepareth — a  ta- 
ble— "  He  rambled  on  through  an  incohe- 
rency  of  scriptural  allusion,  referring  often 
to  his  daughter,  and  rubbing  his  hands  cease- 
lessly together  as  he  sat  on  the  bedside  and 
smiled  vaguely,  and  sometimes  left  off  srnil- 


138 


ing  to  pluck  soberly  at  a  ray  of  sunshine 
flickering  over  his  knee. 

Under  the  dim  abstraction  of  those  peace- 
ful eyes  Wade's  heart  faltered  to  an  aghast 
conviction  of  all  that  their  roving  glances 
meant.  He  had  taken  his  last  hurt,  had 
Mr.  Ruley.  The  tension  had  been  too  much 
for  the  mental  fabric.  If  it  had  not  snapped 
wholly  asunder,  at  least  its  power  had  lost  all 
elasticity.  It  had  not  rebounded  from  this 
final  jerk  of  fate,  but  had  settled  to  a  sort  of 
senile  flaccidity. 

"  In  the  fulness  of  my  years — a  ripened 
shock — my  dear  one,  my  Bessie,  is  with  me 
to — "  The  old  man  paused,  with  his  mild 
gaze  on  the  door.  The  knob  had  seemed  to 
turn  a  little  from  the  outside,  as  if  in  an  ex- 
periraentative  hand.  It  clicked  back  as  the 
door  sprung  open,  revealing  Elizabeth  herself 
in  the  hall.  Her  eyes  went  wide  at  sight  of 
Wade.  Something  like  joy  leaped  to  her 
face  as  she  bent  a  swift  gaze  on  her  father 
and  saw  his  placidity  of  brow.  It  seemed  to 
flash  upon  her  that  this  unexpected  mildness 
of  feature  was  in  some  sort  due  to  the  young 
man — that  he,  perhaps,  had  mediated  for  her. 


139 


"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  youj  you  have  done 
this  !"  And,  clasping  her  father,  she  sobbed, 
"  You  forgive  me,  then  ! — and  he  has  brought 
it  about !  Oh,  I'm  glad  it  was  he !"  Mr.  Ru- 
ley's  countenance  exhibited  a  struggling  com- 
prehension. 

"  Our  young  friend,  Mr.  Wade  ?"  he  asked. 
"  Yes,  I  remember  not  long  since  when  I — 
I — you  had  done  something  to  offend  me 
— he  upheld  you  —  I  remember  it  all  very 
well."  He  stroked  his  daughter's  hair  as  he 
spoke,  but  something  in  his  words  or  man- 
ner startled  her.  She  drew  back.  The  vacant 
amiability  in  the  old  man's  regard  of  her  ap- 
peared to  strike  her  to  the  soul.  She  turned 
almost  wildly  to  Wade. 

"  What  is  it  ?"  she  breathed.  "  Doesn't  lie 
know  me  ?  Oh — " 

"  Know  you  ?"  repeated  Mr.  Ruley,  with 
gentle  reproach.  "  Certainly.  Though  you 
grow  so  tall,  Bessie  !  and  your  long  curls  ? — 
cut  off — all  cut  off — mm  !  A  pity  !"  She  rose. 
She  seemed  about  to  fall,  and  Wade,  rising 
also,  drew  her  face  upon  his  shoulder.  In 
that  moment  of  utter  weakness  and  desperate 
realization  she  had  no  objections,  no  scru- 


140 


pies,  no  provisions  against  the  love  she  had 
been  able  in  lesser  straits  to  renounce.  She 
merely  clang  to  Wade,  speechlessly,  blindly. 

"A  good  child,"  murmured  the  old  man, 
with  an  eye  of  remote  approval.  "  '  Sweet  is 
thy  voice  and  thy  countenance  is  comely.'  " 
His  face  clouded  a  little.  "  You  will  be  kind 
to  her?"  he  asked  Wade,  with  a  kind  of 
doubt.  "If  I  remember  well  I  have  some- 
times been  severe,  somewhat  severe,  with  this 
cherished  daughter  of  mine.  But  I  thought 
I  was  right." 

"  Father,  you  were  right !" 

"  I  believe  I  was,"  quavered  Mr.  Ruley, 
brightening  up.  "  I  executed  justice.  I  was 
right.  But,"  he  added,  in  a  mildly  queru- 
lous fashion,  "  what  difference  does  it  make, 
anyway  ?" 

The  sun  was  shining  now  with  blinding 
radiance.  White-caps  danced  along  the  sea, 
which,  still  upheaved,  flashed  like  a  dolphin's 
back  scaled  with  silver.  Among  the  loose 
and  shattered  timber  of  the  ocean  walk 
throngs  were  gathering,  discussing  the  rav- 
ages of  tie  storm,  laughing,  chattering  as 
gayly  as  ever.  Everything  wore  a  jocund  as- 


141 


pect,  a  cheerincss  such  as  hangs  upon  the 
subsidence  of  peril  or  disaster.  The  tem- 
pest had  passed,  and  it  was  well  with  the 
blithe  summer  city. 

But  beached  below  the  last  pavilion  a 
wrecked  vessel  lay  black  and  crushed,  with  a 
shattered  mast  lunging  across  it  into  the 
sand.  It  spoke  a  mute  tale  of  stress  and  an- 
guish and  stifled  prayers  and  futile  effort.  It 
was  tragic  enough  ;  yet  children  clambered 
over  it,  shouting  joyously,  incoming  weaves 
wreathed  it  with  blossorny  white,  and  here 
and  there  wet  patches  of  the  battered  hulk 
mirrored  what  it  had  never  rendered  back 
while  it  stoutly  rode  the  seas — little  glimpses 
of  the  blue  sky  that  shines  over  all  mortal 
things. 


THE    END 


BY  EVA  WILDER  McGLASSON. 


AN  EARTHLY  PARAGON.  A  Novel.  Il- 
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Arrests  and  holds  attention  by  the  keen,  incisive  qual- 
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the  development  of  individual  traits  under  the  stress  of 
peculiar  conditions  is  definitely  indicated,  by  the  spon- 
taneous vein  of  humor  that  runs  through  the  whole  narra- 
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A  story  far  above  the  usual  average.  ...  So  strong 
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One  of  the  most  remarkable  qualities  of  Miss  Wool- 
son's  work  was  its  intense  picturesqueness.  Few  writers 
have  shown  equal  beauty  in  expressing  the  poetry  of 
landscape. — Springfield  Republican. 

Characterization  is  Miss  Woolson's  forte.  Her  men 
and  women  are  original,  breathing,  and  finely  contrasted 
creations. — Chicago  Tribune. 

Delightful  touches  justify  those  who  see  many  points 
of  analogy  between  Miss  Woolson  and  George  Eliot. — 
N.  Y.  Times. 

Miss  Woolson's  power  of  describing  natural  scenery 
and  strange,  out-of-the-way  phases  of  American  life  is 
undoubted.  One  cannot  well  help  being  fascinated  by 
her  stories. — Churchman,  N.  Y. 

Miss  Woolson  is  one  of  the  few  novelists  of  the  day 
who  know  how  to  make  conversation,  how  to  individual- 
ize the  speakers,  how  to  exclude  rabid  realism  without 
falling  into  literary  formality. — A'.  Y.  Tribune. 


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3 


